Middle Eastern Film Festival Middle Eastern Film Festival
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16 Middle Eastern Film Festival Middle Eastern Film Festival ALMANYA JOURNEY TO THE SUN HEJAR MOURNING Almanya Middle Eastern Film Festival Almanya – Willkommen in Deutschland Mon 6 Feb at 6.15pm This year’s Middle Eastern Film Festival boasts the strongest line-up of fi lms yet, with new releases by Nuri Bilge Yasemin Samdereli • Germany 2011 • 1h37m • Digital projection Ceylan, Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof appearing alongside the work of rising fi lmmakers such as Morteza German and Turkish with English subtitles • 15 Farshbaf, Hesham Issawi and Leyla Bouzid, and a succinct retrospective on Kurdish cinema which, despite the ground- Cast: Vedat Erincin, Fahri Ogün Yardim, Aylin Tezel, Lilay Huser, breaking efforts of Yilmaz Guney in the seventies, only really came to prominence over the last decade and half. This Demet Gül. retrospective takes as its starting point Yesim Ustaoglu’s poetic masterpiece, Journey to the Sun, a fi lm that announced A charming cross-cultural comedy about three generations the arrival of a new Kurdish cinema, then takes its own journey through a remarkable selection of works that places of German-Turks, Almanya is the story of a TurkishTurkish family Kurdish fi lmmakers within the context of Middle Eastern cinema and the broader diaspora. At its best Kurdish cinema living in Germany who set off together for their homeland. not only evokes the sufferings and travails of its people, but also contains moments of great lyricism, humour and Moving across the past and present, the journey is full of humanism, and it is these qualities that have struck such a resonant chord with moviegoers and critics alike. memories, arguments and reconciliations, until the family Complementing the Kurdish season will be a day workshop, facilitated by Mustafu Gundogdu, one of the pre- trip takes an unexpected turn... eminent authorities on Kurdish cinema, and a personal appearance and masterclass by acclaimed documentary fi lmmaker Yuksel Yavuz. For the fi rst time the festival will also be showcasing visual artists with a connection to the region, in a programme of works curated in association with the internet channel The Agent Ria:registeredinart (www.youtube.com/ Journey to the Sun FOCUS ON KURDISH CINEMA registeredinart). Featured artists will be Hakan Akcura and Erkan Ozgen. Günese yolculuk Rounding the festival off will be an exhibition in the cafe bar of works by the Palestinian-born artist Leena Nammari Tue 7 Feb at 6.15pm – see page 26 for details. Yesim Ustaoglu • Turkey/Netherlands/Germany 1999 • 1h44m 35mm • Turkish, Kurdish and Dutch with English subtitles • 15 Cast: Nazmî Kirik, Newroz Baz, Mizgin Kapazan, Ara Güler, Lucia This project is organised by Neill Walker (on behalf of MESP), James McKenzie, and Filmhouse, and is managed Marano. by Neill Walker (on behalf of the Edinburgh International Centre for Spirituality and Peace, EICSP, Scottish Charity, SC038996). Middle East Festival Website: www.mesp.org.uk Turkish Mehmet and Kurdish Berzan are two lonely souls trying to keep their heads above water. Mehmet comes from the west of Turkey and Berzan’s village is far away in the southeast, near the Iraqi border. They meet in the threatening urban environment of Istanbul, where Mehmet is working for the water department and Berzan is selling music cassettes on the street. Mehmet’s hopes for a new life come to an abrupt end when he is mistakenly arrested as a terrorist suspect when a package containing a gun is found next to him on the bus. Middle Eastern Film Festival Middle Eastern Film Festival 17 MOURNING FOTOGRAF TRANSIT CITIES GRANDMA, A THOUSAND TIMES Hejar FOCUS ON Fotograf FOCUS ON DOUBLE BILL KURDISH CINEMA KURDISH CINEMA Büyük adam küçük ask Fri 10 Feb at 6.30pm Sat 11 Feb at 1.15pm Wed 8 Feb at 8.30pm Kazim Oz • Turkey • 2001 • 1h6m • 35mm Turkish and Kurdish with English subtitles • 15 Transit Cities Handan Ipekci • Turkey/Greece/Hungary 2001 • 2h • 35mm Mohammed Hushki • Jordan • 2010 • 1h10m • Digibeta Turkish and Kurdish with English subtitles • 15 Cast: Feyyaz Duman, Nazmî Kirik, Zulfi ye Dolu, Muhlis Asan, Mehmet Ali Oz. Arabic with English subtitles • 15 Cast: Sükran Güngör, Dilan Erçetin, Füsun Demirel, Yildiz Kenter, Cast: Saba Mubarak, Mohammad Al-Qabbani, Shafi ka Al Til, Ashraf Ismail Hakki Sen. An imaginatively shot and revealing fi lm following the Farah, Manal Seihmeimat. stories of two young men travelling to Turkish Kurdistan This controversial fi lm was unanimously nominated to Divorced after 14 years of marriage in the US, a 36-year- by bus. They sit next to each other, each of them hiding represent Turkey at the Academy Awards in the Best old Jordanian woman returns to Amman but fi nds her the reason for his journey from the other. Who are they? Foreign Film category. At the fi lm’s heart is the relationship hometown, family and friends much changed. Hoping to Where are they going? And why? between a nationalist, authoritarian judge and a fi ve-year- rebuild her former life, Laila arrives at her parents’ home old Kurdish orphan. The judge, who is the girl’s neighbour, PLUS SHORTS without warning – and without mentioning her divorce. She takes her in following a botched police raid that results in Kurdish Lessons 1-3 Hakan Akçura • 2010 • 3m fi nds her once active, intellectual father is now a broken man the death of her guardian. Hejar was the winner of several who practically refuses to talk to her, her mother and sister awards, including Best Picture, at Turkey’s prestigious are wearing hijab and frown upon her Western clothing, Golden Orange Film Festival (2001). and her MA degree doesn’t seem to mean anything to her former university when she goes to apply for a job. The last straw comes when she fi nds she can’t even do as she Mourning pleases in her own rented apartment. An atmospheric and Soog affecting drama about cultural estrangement. Thu 9 Feb at 8.30pm PLUS Morteza Farshbaf • Iran 2011 • 1h25m • Digital projection The Agent Ria:registeredinart Persian with English subtitles • 12A Grandma, a Thousand Times Lyndsay Mann, who runs Agent Ria (an internet Mahmoud Kaabour • United Arab Emirates/Qatar/Lebanon Cast: Kiomars Giti, Sharareh Pasha, Amir Hossein Maleki, Sahar 2010 • 50m • Digibeta • Arabic with English subtitles • 12A Dolatshahi, Peyman Maadi. channel screening artist’s fi lms), has curated two Documentary A dark comedy chronicling a road trip through Iran’s works to be screened in the cinema – Hakan Akcura’s Kurdish Lessons 1-3 and Erkan Ozgen’s Teta Fatima is the 83-year old matriarch of the Kaabour countryside to attend the funeral of a young boy’s family and the sharp-witted queen bee of an old Beiruti parents, who are killed in a tragic accident following an Breath – and a longer work by Hakan Akcura, Phuket: Two Sides of the Islands, to be shown quarter. With great intimacy, this playful magic-realist fi lm argument in the middle of the night. The now orphan is documents her larger-than-life character, as she struggles escorted by his two deaf relatives, who choose to keep the online at www.youtube.com/registeredinart and to be presented in person by the artist at Stills Gallery, to cope with the silence of her once-buzzing house and death of his parents a secret. Mourning is a successfully imagines what awaits her beyond death. unconventional exploration of the road trip as a vehicle for 23 Cockburn Street, Edinburgh, on Saturday 18 February from 4 - 6pm. grieving. SEASON CONTINUES OVERLEAF 18 Middle Eastern Film Festival (continued) Middle Eastern Film Festival GITMEK: MY MARLON AND BRANDO ONCE UPON A TIME IN ANATOLIA TURTLES CAN FLY CLOSE UP KURDISTAN Gitmek: My Marlon FOCUS ON Jiyan FOCUS ON Turtles Can Fly FOCUS ON KURDISH CINEMA KURDISH CINEMA KURDISH CINEMA and Brando Sun 12 Feb at 6.15pm Lakposhtha parvaz mikonand Gitmek: Benim Marlon ve Brandom Jano Rosebiani • Iraq/USA 2002 • 1h39m Tue 14 Feb at 6.10pm 35mm • Kurdish with English subtitles Sat 11 Feb at 8.30pm Bahman Ghobadi • Iran/Iraq/France 2004 • 1h37m 12A – Contains moderately distressing scenes 35mm Kurdish with English subtitles Huseyin Karabey • Turkey 2008 • 1h33m • Digibeta Cast: Kurdo Galali, Pirshang Berzinji, Choman Hawrami, Derya Qadir. 15 – Contains implied sexual assault and war trauma English, Kurdish and Turkish with English subtitles • 15 Five years after the chemical and biological bombing of Cast: Soran Ebrahim, Avaz Latif, Saddam Hossein Feysal, Hiresh Cast: Ayca Damgaci, Hama Ali Kahn, Nesrin Cevadzade, Omer Feysal Rahman, Abdol Rahman Karim. Sahin, Cengiz Bozkurt. Halabja, Diyari, a Kurdish-American architect returns to his The fi rst fi lm to be made in Iraq after the fall of Saddam Gitmek: My Marlon and Brando follows the long-distance homeland, intending to build an orphanage in what is left Hussein, Turtles Can Fly is set in a KurdishKurdish refugee camp love affair between Ayca, an actress from Turkey, and of the town. He fi nds himself in a community where daily Hama Ali, an actor from Iraq. When Americans invade Iraq burials of the dead are a regular occurrence, even years on the Iraqi-Turkish border just before the US invasion in and the country is engulfed in with hellish violence, Ayca after the attack. In the midst of this situation he discovers spring 2003. Director Bahman Ghobadi concentrates on a decides to go on a dangerous and seemingly futile journey two children, cousins Jiyan and Sherko, who prove that it is handful of orphaned children and their efforts to survive to Iraq, in search of her lover. still possible to salvage something from this destruction. the appalling conditions.