Kurdish Short Honored at Anti-Terrorism Film Festival in Iraq

The first International Forum of Cinema Against Terrorism in Erbil, capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, closed on Friday, awarding the best short film prize to a budding Kurdish director.

The festival featured 25 feature films and 23 short films from Iraq, Morocco, France, Egypt, India, South Korea, Afghanistan and the United States. It was set to coincide with the 11-year anniversary of twin suicide attacks at Kurdish political offices to commemorate the 117 civilians and politicians killed and 133 injured.

An international jury recognized both the director in the short film "I Am Sami" and the acting of the two 10-year-old leading actors.

"I was delighted to receive this award from my native land, but also because we shot I AM SAMI in Kurdistan, in Maxmur town, and without the support of the Kurdish people we would have not been able to make the film,” director Kae Bahar told Rudaw.  “Also, at this moment that my people, the Kurds are in war against the savage ISIS, I am really glad that we could contribute with our film to this fight for our freedom.”

"I Am Sami" is Bahar’s first fiction film and won 36 awards at 86 festivals worldwide, including in Mexico, Colombia and Spain. The story centers around a young Kurdish boy living in a war zone alongside U.S. forces, “forced to take decisions beyond his understanding.”

Kurdish cinema has taken off in the past decade, its most famous director — Bahman Ghobadi — featuring this year at the Sundance Festival. Another, Sahim Kalifa, was shortlisted for the short film category in the Academy Awards. Many of the films are produced and shown outside of the Kurdish region, though, and the festival against terrorism is the first held in Erbil. It showed footage of the 2004 terrorist attack never before screened on the opening day.