Monolog (Monologue)
Director Selim Yıldız | Documentary, 17’33’’ | September 2023 | Turkey
Şivan Encü, a young Kurdish man, supported his family by engaging in cross-border trade—what the state labeled as “smuggling”—between Turkey and Iraq. In 2011, he was among the victims of the Robozik (Roboski) Massacre. After his death, the burden of providing for the family fell to his younger brother, Sinan, whose life was tragically cut short in an accident.
This film tells the story of their mother, Heyam, a woman shaped by grief yet defined by resilience. Through her eyes, we witness the enduring pain of loss and the quiet strength of survival.
Interwoven with Heyam’s personal journey are the voices of Robozik’s elders and community leaders—those who have lived through the complex realities of cross-border trade. Their testimonies reveal the deeply rooted social, political, and economic dimensions of a practice that, for generations, has been the backbone of life and survival in this borderland.
Judi of the Wishes
(Cûdîyê Miradan)
Director Semiha Yıldız | Animation, 6’31’’ | February 2021 | Diyarbakır/Turkey
Believed in many Middle Eastern cultures to be the place where Noah’s ark came to rest after the Flood, Mount Judi also constitutes the northern border of Mesopotamia, the birthplace of many civilizations. Inspired by a feeling from a childhood memory from Judi and its imagery, Judi of the Wishes (Cûdîyê Miradan) simultaneously tackles the seasonal cycle in the mountain and the disruption of this natural flow by armed conflict. This short is also an attempt to reconstruct the name of the mountain—home to a wide range of flowers, goats and honeybees, and which is also believed to have the power to grant wishes—from within that geography and by the sound of nature itself, in contrast to what outsiders have been attempting to do for decades.
Judi of the Wishes won the Best Short Animation Award at the 12th Hamburg Kurdish Film Festival (12. Kurdisches Filmfestival Hamburg).