9-11 May 2025
Immerse yourself in a multitude of looks at the Kurds and a chronically urgent cinema.
In the spring of 1988, in the depth of the Iraq-Iran war, the border town of Halabja was attacked by chemical weapons with all its people and their different stories.
Aspiring popstar Mutlu Kaya (Mutlu means ‘happy’ in Turkish) narrowly escapes an attempted femicide with her life. Despite life-changing injuries, Mutlu goes in search of justice and to reclaim her voice as a singer.
From 14:00 to 20:00, De Krakeling will be transformed into a vibrant traditional chaikhana (teahouse), filled with warmth, music, and Kurdish hospitality. Delicious treats will be served by Catering Paru. De Krakeling will also be buzzing with a vibrant selection of stands celebrating Kurdish creativity and culture. Come explore: ✨ Fistan for Your Day (FSYD) – beautifully tailored Kurdish outfits for your special occasion ✨ Elegant Jli Kurdi Sha (traditional Kurdish suits) ✨ Bold designs from Kurdish Couture ✨ Flavorful, artisanal olive oil ✨ Eye-catching posters by Pari and AKFF ✨ Thought-provoking reads from Kurdistan Chronicle Magazine. Join us for an afternoon full of color, craft, and culture!No ticket needed for entry.
Musical performance by Kurdish singer Niaz Shaida. No ticket needed for entry.
After multiple performances at Parallel during their club concept Feels Right, CHAMOS is back with their first-ever headline show in Amsterdam, where they will play a special 2-hour set. Heads up: You’ll need two separate tickets, one for BIJI and one for CHAMOS!Known for their genre-spanning DJ sets that seamlessly blend Southwest Asian influences, bass, and percussion, CHAMOS truly embody their name—meaning "friends"—as they bring together diverse sounds and audiences. With members from Kurdish and Dutch backgrounds, their music effortlessly fuses traditional and electronic elements. Building on the success of their club edits series, which has garnered attention from DJs and artists alike, they have cultivated an organic and ever-growing fanbase.This night is part of the club concept Feels Right. Feels Right is a club night that isn't tied to one genre but bridges various musical dance cultures, moving from from Southwest Asia to the Caribbean, and from Africa to South America. The Dutch club scene has many talents who can effortlessly deliver this combination of sounds. Feels Right is happy to put these artists in the spotlight along with exciting acts from abroad.Time: 23:00 to 04:00.
BIJI is the joint project of artist and actor Robin Nazari and director and music producer Maceo Frost. Together, they create an audiovisual experience that is deeply personal, boundary-pushing, and rooted in Kurdish culture. With BIJI, Robin and Maceo aim to broaden the perception of Kurdish art and culture, telling stories of love, freedom, and the celebration of life from their own perspective. Their music blends traditional Kurdish and West Asian influences with genres like hip-hop, afrobeat, Latin, and dance.Robin Nazari Robin Nazari is a Kurdish-Swedish rapper, actor, and poet. He has released three solo albums in Swedish, which have collectively been streamed hundreds of thousands of times. He rose to fame with his role in the series Snabba Cash, followed by appearances in Clark and Netflix’s The Beautiful Game.Maceo Frost Maceo Frost is an award-winning filmmaker and producer based in Stockholm. His work often focuses on street culture, covering subjects like hip-hop, dance, and skateboarding. In 2018, he won a Clio Award for his YouTube documentary on Burna Boy. He also collaborated with Adidas on the HBO documentary TOO BEAUTIFUL, about Cuban boxing.
Elu, birth name Rojda, is a multi-disciplinary artist and humanitarian activist versed in traditional skin marking, visual arts and exploring various analog and digital practices. Embodying art as a gateway of connection amidst borders and boundaries, her artistic work aims to bridge between the ancient and the contemporary.Within the recent decade her labour shifted to preserving the indigenous tattoo tradition DEQ, which she has, additionally to reviving skin marking tradition, dedicated a documentary (in progress), multiple exhibitions, publications and archival projects to.Connecting back to land and source as well as community, art as a tool of social change is the earth in her garden. She contributed and organized humanitarian aid fundraisers through art globally, raising nearly 10.000€ over the past 7 years, alongside creating a circular funding project providing free mental wellness sessions to women and LBTQ+ identifying people from the SWANA region.Being of nomadic origin has led her to collaborate in organizing community events, festivals, exhibitions and workshops globally, with focus on empowering and broadening the representation of BIPOC artists and practitioners in contemporary heterogenous spaces.
A paranormal thriller about a malevolent entity that gains its power by preying on the souls of children.
Sinûr means borders, but we do not mean the lines drawn on maps. This selection of shorts explore the emotional and political boundaries that shape Kurdish lives: war and exile, loss and memory, migration and return. This is not just about crossing borders, it is about what we carry within us and what we fight to reclaim.
Rengawreng - the Kurdish word for “colorful” - is our theme for this selection of shorts. Not in the literal sense, but as a reflection of the rich, layered spectrum of Kurdish life, identity, memory and imagination.
The Naharina are the inhabitants of the rivers of Syrian Kurdistan, creating cooperatives, communes, and women's homes, but Turkey has dried up the rivers.
The fight of Kurdistan’s people and environmentalists to save the last Great Bustards (çirgan) from disappearing forever.
A traveling cinema lights up the night in Kurdish towns — and with it, a conversation ignites among women confronting patriarchy head-on.
After her mom’s tragic death on the Polish-Belarusian border, a 16-year-old Kurdish girl, Runa, has to become a mother to her four younger brothers. A partially animated coming-of-age story set during a global refugee crisis.
A leader who can’t lead, a guide who doesn’t know the way, and a dreamer who tags along.
Former martial artist Sarah leaves Austria to train three sisters from a wealthy family in the Middle East. What sounds initially like a dream job soon becomes unsettling: the young women are cut off from the outside world and under constant surveillance. Sport doesn’t seem to interest them. So why has Sarah been hired?
Twenty seven years since the disappearances at the hands of state forces in the Dargeçit district of Mardin, locals are fighting for truth and justice within the Turkish judicial system. While breaking the state’s wall of impunity may seem like an impossible task, the truth is clear and for those who want to see it.”
Refugee families live in a beat-up stadium in the city of Kirkuk. Energetic and lovestruck Asu decides to cheer up those close to him by organising a soccer tournament, in which the people forget their races and become close neighbours while trying to overcome the sorrow and consequences of the war.
Mona, a Kurdish-Syrian refugee in Berlin, joins a competitive girls' football team where rivalries run deep — but soon learns that only teamwork makes the dream work.
Sinûr means borders, but we do not mean the lines drawn on maps. This selection of shorts explore the emotional and political boundaries that shape Kurdish lives: war and exile, loss and memory, migration and return. This is not just about crossing borders, it is about what we carry within us and what we fight to reclaim.After the screening a Q+A will take place with Hamoun Dolatshahi, director of "Nothing but the Truth", moderated by Dia Mahmoud.
From 14:00 to 20:00, De Krakeling will be transformed into a vibrant traditional chaikhana (teahouse), filled with warmth, music, and Kurdish hospitality. Delicious kebabs will be served by Catering Paru. De Krakeling will also be buzzing with a vibrant selection of stands celebrating Kurdish creativity and culture. Come explore: ✨ Elegant Jli Kurdi Sha (traditional Kurdish suits) ✨ Bold designs from Kurdish Couture ✨ Flavorful, artisanal olive oil ✨ Eye-catching posters by Pari and AKFF ✨ Thought-provoking reads from Kurdistan Chronicle Magazine. Join us for an afternoon full of color, craft, and culture!
No ticket needed for entry.
Join us as we close the Amsterdam Kurdish Film Festival with one of our most cherished traditions: the AKFF Award Ceremony. On this special evening, we come together to celebrate outstanding Kurdish cinema and honor the voices that have moved, challenged, and inspired us throughout this year’s festival.We will proudly announce the winners in the following categories:Best Short Fiction,Best Short Documentary,Best Feature Fiction &Best Feature Documentary.In addition, we will celebrate the rising talents of a new generation with the announcement of the winner of the AKFF Academy Award 2025.The awards are a tribute to the creativity, courage, and cultural richness of Kurdish filmmakers worldwide. We look forward to celebrating their achievements with you.Let us close this festival with pride, joy, and recognition – and look ahead to another year of powerful storytelling.No ticket needed for entry.
This year, we’re excited to host a panel where we will explore the meaning of freedom in Bashur. We will look at its start, development, history and politics. Moreover, we will discuss how this relative freedom has affected Kurdish Cinema. We will be joined on the panel by Zana Kurda, KRG’s advisor on EU affairs, the acclaimed Kurdish director, Shawkat Amin Korki, known for Crossing the Dust (2006), Kick Off Kirkuk (2009), and Memories on Stone (2014) - films that fictionally portray real and defining moments in the history of Başûri (South) Kurdistan. We will also be welcoming renowned actors Shadan Fouad and Shamal Aba Rash who is featuring in the AKFF opening film 1988 (2024), one of the first feature fiction films about the Halabja genocide.We’ll examine how the development of the KRG and its politics have influenced Kurdish cinema. We will look at the KRG in the past, present and future and explore freedom and its limitations. Join us in this exciting conversation as we discuss the meaning of freedom, how to preserve it and how to expand it.Panel members: Zana Kurda, Shawkat Amin Korki (Kick-off Kirkuk), Shamal Aba Rash (1988) & Shadan Fouad. Moderated by: Reber DoskyNo ticket needed for entry.
Çeto lives with his father, Mustafa, and his younger deaf sister, Zeyno. It’s time for Çeto to start earning his own money and helping the family cover the cost of living.
A paranormal thriller about a malevolent entity that gains its power by preying on the souls of children.
Elu, birth name Rojda, is a multi-disciplinary artist and humanitarian activist versed in traditional skin marking, visual arts and exploring various analog and digital practices. Embodying art as a gateway of connection amidst borders and boundaries, her artistic work aims to bridge between the ancient and the contemporary.Within the recent decade her labour shifted to preserving the indigenous tattoo tradition DEQ, which she has, additionally to reviving skin marking tradition, dedicated a documentary (in progress), multiple exhibitions, publications and archival projects to.Connecting back to land and source as well as community, art as a tool of social change is the earth in her garden. She contributed and organized humanitarian aid fundraisers through art globally, raising nearly 10.000€ over the past 7 years, alongside creating a circular funding project providing free mental wellness sessions to women and LBTQ+ identifying people from the SWANA region.Being of nomadic origin has led her to collaborate in organizing community events, festivals, exhibitions and workshops globally, with focus on empowering and broadening the representation of BIPOC artists and practitioners in contemporary heterogenous spaces.
A group of Kurdish actors come together to restage a play from 25 years ago. On their journey, they find out that their political situation has not changed much.
Xoşewîstî - the Kurdish word for love - is the thread that runs through this section of shorts, but in different ways than expected. These stories explore longing, care, tenderness and survival. Love for the homeland they remember, for their language, for a parent left behind. It’s love not in the sense of a fairytale, but for everything that gets us through life.
Nasrin’s voice is an intensive documentary film about human trafficking, becoming independent and the price the young Kurdish woman Nasrin has to pay for her freedom. At the same time it is a film about survival, courage, and hope.
After the Iran-Iraq War, a Kurdish man who lost his legs to landmines dedicates his life to clearing them, while an Iranian craftsman builds wooden prosthetics for survivors on both sides of the border.
In the spring of 1988, in the depth of the Iraq-Iran war, the border town of Halabja was attacked by chemical weapons with all its people and their different stories.
Avesta, a young Kurdish-Yazidi woman and ISIS survivor, winds up in Brussels to wreak vengeance upon the man who enslaved her.
‘Home, The Story of Zak Moradi’, explores the journey of a refugee, from fleeing war to building a new home and eventually returning to reconnect with his homeland.
In 1993, the Öğüt family was burned alive in the village of Vartinis, their story buried in silence—until Vartinis, directed by Mehmet Ömer Biçer, brings the truth to light, revealing a community’s pain, a state’s denial, and a relentless fight for justice.
