How film-making and film festivals in Europe have become an engine and a focal point for Kurdish identity and solidarity
There is (as yet) no state of Kurdistan. But in this article for the Turkish media outlet 1+1 Express (Birartibir), Adem Özgür and Merve Erol trace the rise of Kurdish cinema festivals in sustaining a sense of Kurdistan – across borders, and in diaspora.
The story of Europe’s Kurdish diaspora communities starts, for the most part, in the 1960s and 1970s, with waves of Kurdish labour migration from Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey. The 1980s and 1990s brought a sharper political edge. Over time, these diaspora communities have played a critical role in shaping contemporary Kurdish identity, culturally and politically.
As Özgür and Erol report, Kurdish film festivals and the films themselves – from documentaries and short films to features – have been a powerful link, knitting these communities together and connecting them to their homelands of origin, divided among Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and Syria. The journalists trace the rise of these festivals: from the oldest and most institutionalised – the London Kurdish Film Festival – to Amsterdam, to more politically charged initiatives such as the festival in Berlin, and newer ones in Duhok and Qamishlo, and occasional ones as far afield as New York and Moscow.
The first major international success of Kurdish cinema, the article recalls, was Yılmaz Güney’s iconicYol (The Road). Winning the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1982, Yol’s work portrayed the intense repression following the 1980 military coup in Turkey.
But A Time for Drunken Horses – directed by Bahman Ghobadi, from Eastern Kurdistan (in Iran) – heralded a second critical turning point. The film won the Caméra d’Or in Cannes in 2000. Around the same time, a growing number of Kurdish filmmakers – Hisham Zaman, Kazım Öz, Hüseyin Karabey, and Hiner Saleem – began to gain recognition at international film festivals. The Kurdish Film Days were held in Vienna in May 2000. A year later, the London Kurdish Film Festival was established, serving as a blueprint for festivals across the diaspora.
The Cannes success of 2000 briefly inspired a new movement within Turkey, leading to conferences on Kurdish cinema and even the country’s first Kurdish short film festival. But that was then. The article notes that Kurdish cinema continues to face censorship, political pressure, and economic obstacles. Studio infrastructure is insufficient. Kurdish films are often ignored, underfunded, or denied access to mainstream distribution in the four main countries with substantial Kurdish populations.
In a sense, then, the importance of international festivals – their existence, even – is the flip-side of these realities. Writer and director Mizgîn Müjde Arslan describes how festivals are “like oxygen” for Kurdish filmmakers. If Kurdish films don’t fit in national canons, where are they supposed to go, but turn outwards into a transnational circuit of festivals?
And yet, she points out, international festivals often cater primarily to the host country’s dominant cultural audience, rather than to diaspora communities themselves. “It is crucial that the thousands of Kurds living in London have the opportunity to watch their own films”, she tells Birartibir: “the fundamental aim of festivals should be for Kurds to hear their own voices and see themselves.”
There can be a certain “expected Kurdish movie pattern” in festivals, the article reports, where the same themes crop up again and again: the Rojava revolution, resistance, and the Yazidi genocide. Özgür and Erol suggest this may be partly due to what is considered “safe” by the selection committees, but also down to what Kurdish movies (with easily identifiable “Kurdish” themes) get European funding. That said, the article cites a new wave of directors increasingly trying to break the mold and the remarkable growth in the number of women directors (nearly half of those at the Amed/Diyarbakır festival in December last year).
But there’s another explanation for such strong recurring motifs in Kurdish cinema: reflections on borders, on migration, for example. Perhaps these are simply a true reflection of the realities of Kurdish lives, so frequently shaped by displacement, violence, and marginalisation; or even the result of the inherent community-building role of Kurdish cinema, for a people without a state. Film, in this reading, should be about nation-building. It should be collective, not individual. Diyar Hesso, organiser of the Rojava International Film Festival in northern Syria, held last November, tells Birartabir: “When a story emerges,” Hesso explains, “it is no longer the story of one person, but of the people”.
Ultimately, Kurdish film festivals should be seen not so much as cultural events but as temporary yet vital institutions: where circulation resists censorship, solidarity counters resource constraints, and memory confronts denial. In doing so, they ensure that Kurdish cinema continues to breathe, speak, and imagine Kurdistan itself into the future.
This original source article ‘Bellek, sürgün, festival’ by Adem Özgür and Merve Erol was published in Turkish in 1+1 Express (Birartibir) on 11 January, 2026.
It is available here.
1+1 Express (Birartibir) is an independent Turkish cultural, artistic, and political magazine and digital platform known for its focus on in-depth interviews, social movements, and critical analysis. It is published under the umbrella of the Bir+Bir Culture and Arts Association.
Summary by TMH.
