Documentaries

SADDAM'S ROAD TO HELL

Directors: Gwynne Roberts & John Williams
UK 2006 / 52m / in English / 15

Film-maker Gwynne Roberts and his co-director John Williams who sadly died during the film's production, accompany a Kurdish investigator, Human Rights Minister Mohammed Ihsan, on a dangerous journey through Iraq to find out what exactly happened to 8,000 Kurdish men and boys who went missing in the early years of Saddam's rule. Threatened by violence all along the way, they collect documents, video, testimony and finally forensic evidence, all of which would be presented at Saddam's trial. Saddam's Road To Hell exposes the fault lines of a fractured society to reveal how Iraq's dark past impacts on the present and future.

CAN BAZ (The one who plays with his life)

Director: Özay Sahin
Germany-Turkey 2005 / 75m / Kurdish (Dimilki/Zazaki) and Turkish with English subtitles / 15

The Siya Siyabend group were featured in Fatih Akin's music documentary CROSSING THE BRIDGE. This documentary focuses on its members and their friends as they make music, and live their lives on the streets of the a bustling centre of Istanbul. The brothers Murat and Ahmet Öztürk and their friend Hasan Isik, a glue-sniffing street kid return home to East Anatolia where they find changes but few answers.

13 BULLETS

Director: Mehmet Hatman
North Kurdistan (Turkey) 2005 / 32m / Kurdish (Kurmanji) with English subtitles / PG

Turkish security forces killed 12 years old primary school student Ugur Kaymaz with his father on the 21st of November 2004 in front of their house in the Kiziltepe district in the Kurdish region. The incident hit the headlines in the country just before the EU's decision to start entry negotiations with Turkey. Ugur Kaymaz is just one of the thousands of Kurdish victims of judicial killings in Turkey. This documentary explores the struggle of his family to understand why.

38

Director: Çayan Demirel
North Kurdistan (Turkey) 2006 / 68m / Kurdish (Zazaki) and Turkish with English subtitles / 15

This documentary explores the nation-state building policy of the Turkish state in Dersim (renamed Tunceli as part of this Turkification policy) in the Kurdish region in 1937/38. The film shows that this policy was implemented through use of excessive force against civilians resulting in the death of up to 80,000 people. Director Çayan Demirel combines eyewitness accounts, testimonies from survivors, historical research, official documents and press coverage from the time to examine whether what took place in Dersim was genocide.

AL-ANFAL

Director: Mano Khalil
Switzerland 2005 / 52m / Kurdish (Sorani) with English subtitles / 15

Al-Anfal is the title of the eight sura of the Koran. It revealed to the prophet Muhammad how the bounty, which the Muslim took in the war against the unbelieving, should be divided among his followers. Saddam Hussein issued a decree in which he authorised his cousin Ali Hassan Al-Majid (Chemical Ali) to wage war on the Kurdish people. The film spotlights this forgotten war which resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands of civilian Kurds between 1988-1991. The Baath regime has disappeared in Iraq but its sister party remains in power in Syria…

DAVID THE TOLHILDAN

Director: Mano Khalil
Switzerland 2006 / 54m / French, German and Kurdish (Kurmanji) with English subtitles / PG

A documentary portrait of David Rouiller, a young Swiss man who joined the Kurdish resistance movement PKK five years ago. The son of a former president of the Swiss federal Supreme Court, he gave up a comfortable and safe life in Switzerland for the hardships and dangers of the Kurdish mountains. A true story which raises questions about respect, human dignity, solidarity, freedom and violence.

BETWEEN THE WORLDS

Director: Yusuf Yesilöz
Switzerland 2006 / 54m / Kurdish (Zazaki), Turkish, German with English subtitles / PG

A vivid portrait of Güli Dogan, a Kurdish woman who immigrated to Switzerland twenty six years ago. Although Güli has integrated into Swiss society, memories of the mountain village of her childhood still produce heartfelt longings.