My Small Land

Love in the Time of Corona

June 2024 •Kurdish

The movie follows Kurdistan during the Covid-19 crisis in 2019, and how it ruined relationships between loved ones.

Welcome

March 2009 •French

Bilal is 17 years old, a Kurdish boy from Iraq. He sets off on an adventure-filled journey across Europe. He wants to get to England to see his love who lives there. Bilal finally reaches Calais, but how do you cover 32 kilometers of the English Channel when you can't swim? The boy soon discovers that his trip won't be as easy as he imagined... The community of struggling illegal aliens in Calais

The Heavy Burden

September 2019 •Kurdish

AVDEL feeds his family with the salary of his old donkey, BOZO, who works in the waste department of the city of Mardin in Turkey. It is also home to his nephew, SALIH, who fled Syria because of the war. After BOZO’s “retirement”, Avdel must find a younger ass to continue to earn his salary. So traumatized by the war Salih returns to Syria to recover his.

Are You Listening Mother?

February 2019 •Kurdish

A Kurdish woman is sentenced to six years of house arrest with an electronic ankle bracelet. The charge: supporting terrorist activities. From now on an invisible border runs through her garden in a Turkish village, which she repeatedly trespasses. Her older son is torn between obedience and rebellion. How far will he go to protect his mother from further punishment?

Home & Key

October 2014 •Kurdish

The story of this film is an aesthetic narration of the death of a Kurdish Family, along the 20th century.

Blackboards

September 2000 •Persian

Itinerant Kurdish teachers, carrying blackboards on their backs, look for students in the hills and villages of Iran, near the Iraqi border during the Iran-Iraq war. Said falls in with a group of old men looking for their bombed-out village; he offers to guide them, and takes as his wife Halaleh, the clan's lone woman, a widow with a young son. Reeboir attaches himself to a dozen pre-teen boys weighed down by contraband they carry across the border; they're mules, always on the move. Said and Reeboir try to teach as their potential students keep walking. Danger is close; armed soldiers patrol the skies, the roads, and the border. Is there a role for a teacher? Is there hope?

Refugee Poetry

April 2016 •Kurdish

The Kurdish Iraqi poet and actor Zeravan Khalil travels with his dog through an Alpine gorge after fleeing from IS war and genocide. As he remembers the abomination, he writes a poem with the title “You drive me mad” in Kurmanji Kurdish. In his home country, Yazidic Kurds are forbidden to work in his profession. Then he eats his apple and wanders through Europe’s middle with more hope.

Agony

January 2023 •Kurdish

A mentally handicapped girl has been raped a few months ago. Her parents, Jalal and Maryam are trying to abort the baby and get rid of it but something worse happens

A Little Bit of Freedom

November 2003 •German

In the metropolitan city of Hamburg, illegal immigrant Chernor, an openly gay African youth with blond hair, makes his money by dealing drugs and dreams of one day living in Australia. Baran, meanwhile, is a Kurdish bicycle delivery boy living in constant fear of deportation, who keeps his past in a video camera. The two form a bond when they meet, and their shared struggles to survive soon develop into a relationship that is threatened when Baran loses his job.

Çerx

March 2022 •Kurdish

In the 1990s, some newspapers were not allowed to enter the Diyarbakir region, under a state of emergency at that time, although they were legal. Children like Bawer and Hebûn, who were part of the distribution group, would secretly collect these newspapers from outside the city at a previously agreed location and take them to the planned meeting place in the city. There, the children changed their clothes and went out to distribute them, under the guise of other work. But they were constantly followed by those who saw the newspaper as dangerous and wanted to prevent its dissemination. Çerx is a testament to the conditions under which these newspapers were distributed to readers and the difficulties encountered.

Wild is the Spring

June 2021 •English

Through a series of vignettes from the ancient and war-torn Levant, WILD IS THE SPRING captures moments in the lives of diverse ethnic communities who struggle to survive when life descends into chaos.

Traces: People of the Peacock

January 2016 •Kurdish

Filmmaker Binevsa Bêrîvan travels to Armenia to capture the daily life, customs, and history of the country's Yazidi Kurdish community.

Incomplete Sentences

June 2022 •Turkish

Aslı Erdoğan, world-renowned author and activist, has fallen into silence after she fled to Germany. Incomplete Sentences is a feature documentary on her literature and life, leading to exile in Frankfurt, after the Turkish regime’s oppression results in her unlawful imprisonment. Now, she struggles in exile while everybody is waiting for her to write again. Right after getting out of prison Aslı starts telling her story to the director, wandering in the streets of Istanbul she recites parts from her books and explains the stories behind. When Aslı goes to Germany to receive the Erich Maria Remarque Award she cannot return; thus her exile, which she likens to a semi-open prison, begins. As her health deteriorates and keeps her from writing, the tragedy in her books becomes her own reality.

Dyab

January 2016 •Kurdish

12-year-old Dyab is a Kurdish Yazidi boy living at Arbat refugee camp, after the horrendous attacks by the Islamic States on their villages at Shingal Mountains (Sinjar). However, Dyab’s dream is, to become a filmmaker and actor and tell the stories and sufferings of his people to the outside world.

My War

April 2018 •English

A disturbing portrait of four Western volunteers who risk their lives to fight ISIS alongside Kurdish forces. The feature documentary 'My War' probes the complex motives behind the need to take up arms on someone else’s behalf.

Binxet - Under the border

May 2017 •Italian

“Binxet – Under the border” is a journey between life and death, dignity and pain, struggle and freedom. It takes place along the 911 km of the turkish-Syrian border. On the one hand the ISIS, in the other Erdogan’s Turkey. In the middle the borders and one hope. This hope is called Rojava, only one point on the chart of a troubled region, a region of resistance and an example of grassroots democracy that speaks about gender equality, self-determination of peoples and peaceful coexistence.

29

November 2014 •English

In 2013, Selim Yildiz spent 29 days with Kurdish soldiers (PKK) and made his first documentary 29.

Homeland

January 2015 •Kurdish

A village, in the hearts of mountains, is totally empty. Still it is not. The village comes to life back with past voices. There is no people in the village. But their voices exist. There are no animals and no living things. But their voices exist. The past voices, together with scenes happenning right now, create memory about what happened there. It is the story of people, animals, nature and all the living things of a village before it is ruined.

ARGILEUX

September 2024 •French