Sunday June 1 | 12:30 pm | Vancity Theatre

Director: Annegriet Wietsma, The Netherlands, 2007, 70 minutes

In 1988, Saddam Hussein’s forces used chemical weapons to murder some 5,000 men, women and children in the Kurdish town of Halabja. People died almost where they stood—grandfathers, grandmothers, husbands, wives and children. It was these attacks, unleashed on innocent civilians, that forged Nuriye Kesbir’s resolve to fight for the freedom of the Kurdish people. Instead of accepting an arranged marriage and an ordinary life, Nuriye became a guerilla soldier with the PKK resistance movement, taking on the name Sozdar, meaning “she who lives her promise.”

Director Annegriet Wietsma first approached Nuriye in 2001 after she had been arrested in the Netherlands and was awaiting deportation back to Turkey. After being released from prison, Nuriye became little more than a stateless refugee, moving from safe house to safe house, guarded every moment by a group of Kurdish patriots. In this remarkably intimate portrait, we see her caught in a no man’s land of dueling governments and global politics that adds to her growing frustration and her need to take action. A trip to the hairdresser with her niece or a moment watching children playing in a school yard reveals the enormous schism between the ease and privilege of the West and the suffering and hardships endured by the Kurdish people. Fiercely dedicated to women’s suffrage, Nuriye has difficulty understanding how the struggle for women’s rights and freedom can result in something like Amsterdam’s infamous Red Light District.

Nuriye’s decision to flee the Netherlands and return to the guerilla camps in the mountains of Northern Iraq, where row upon row of painfully young fighters await her return, reveals the true depth of her character. Despite the hardship and danger, it is the only place Nuriye’s life has meaning.

Director Biography

Annegriet Wietsma is a filmmaker and publicist who studied Pedagogic Science at the University of Amsterdam. Her work includes films in widely diverging genres, several books and articles and guest teaching of film. She founded and coordinated the Stichting Expressieve Muurkrant (Foundation Expressive Wall Newspaper), an illuminated news trailer in the center of Amsterdam.

Preceded by:

Buried Treasure

Director: Donna Szoke, Canada, 2007, 4 minutes

Director in attendance

A drawing-based animation about Szoke’s paternal step grandmother, Buried Treasure alludes to her complex coping mechanisms from post-war trauma and her personal triumphs. This work was completed during a thematic residency burnout: loss and recovery at the Alternator Gallery in October 2004. Featuring original music composed by Moshe Denburg, performed by the Orchid Ensemble.