Kurdish Lover

“The Kurdish lover is Oktay, a man of Kurdish origin with whom I share my life. We have been drifting through a devastated region brought to a standstill by war and economic misery. How do people manage to co-exist in this place? This is the question posed by the film. Here we live in close proximity to one another, in a tightly woven network of geographical and social ties. Loving someone can become confused with having a hold over them. It is with an often black humour that the characters featured in this film find ways, within their community, to affirm that they truly exist. A shaman goes into trance in front of the television, sex-starved hermit dreams of marriage, a ewe is sacrificed and eaten, an old woman prevents her daughter-in-law from learning to read, a shepherdess lives at the top of the mountain and would like to return to the valley, the military watch over the village, a man who came from Europe goes off to request the hand in marriage of a young girl living with her mother. It is through these situations that we discover the reality of families doing what they can to find a way of living together, to take the best – or the worst – from each moment. “