Kurdish Cinema Day to be held in Sulaimani

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The event of Kurdish Cinema Day will be held on Sept. 9 in the city of Sulaimani.

This year's event will last four days, consisting of seven parts.

This year’s event also pledges to salute the work of Kurdish-Turkish film director Yilmaz Guney with several parts discussing the awards, literature exhibitions, caricature exhibitions, paintings, and posters named in his honor.

In the first part, 16 books about international cinema and Kurdish and Arabic cinema will be showcased. The books contain diverse content, including three volumes on the over 100-year history of cinema. 

One of the books is about the legacy of Kurdish-Egyptian directors Ahmed Badrakhan and his son Ali Badrakhan.

Other posters feature Kurdish singer Ahmet Kaya and Felaw Alpine Lake, which is a tourist attraction in Erbil Province's Balakayati region, among other various representations of Kurdish artists and culture.

Four different biographical posters are printed each year. Every year, four personalities unveil the biographies before release. Each attendee is given the opportunity to sign a poster with their name and date. Each signatory will then be presented with a copy of the poster, while the originals will be kept in the Hawari Film Archive until a museum dedicated to Yilmaz Guney is opened.

In the sixth part, a panel will be held about the cinema and drama sectors in the Kurdistan Region, in which the Kurdistan Regional Government Ministry of Culture’s efforts in aiding consumers and promoting investment in Kurdish cinema will be discussed.

Various awards will be given throughout the duration of the event. The first award will be given to the writer, novelist, and translator Ahmed Muhammed Ismail, who translated nine Guney books from Turkish into Kurdish. Ismail was tirelessly working to translate a 10th novel by Guney, but he unexpectedly perished before completing the translation. The translated novel's completion will be announced at the event.