Shawkat Amin Korki

Shawkat Amin Korki

Birth : , Zakho, Iraqi Kurdistan

History

Shawkat Amin Korki was born in 1973. Originally from Zakho, Iraqi Kurdistan, he and his family fled from Iraqi military oppression to Iran in 1975, where they lived in exile for 25 years. Korki studied Cinema in Iran. During his years in Iran and then when he returned to Iraqi Kurdistan, he began to work in theatre, television, and cinema. His short films, made between 1997 and 2005, have been presented at many international festivals, winning awards and receiving an excellent reception. In 2002, he helped organize the first Erbil Short Film Festival. Crossing the Dust, his debut feature film gained international recognition in 2006 and premiered at International Film Festival Rotterdam. Korki’s greatest success to this date has been Memories on Stone (2014), the official Oscar entry from Iraq. His movies have been presented at world-famous film festivals such as Karlovy Vary, Busan, Cairo, Edinburgh, Tallinn, Göteborg, Hong Kong, and many more in the past.

Profile

Shawkat Amin Korki
Shawkat Amin Korki

Movies

The Exam
Writer
Rojin is a young Kurdish-Iraqi woman about to take the university entrance exam. Rojin's unhappily married older sister Shilan decides to help her pass at any cost, hoping to give her a more emancipated life. Thus, the sisters inevitably become entangled in a huge network of corruption that connects all parts of society.
The Exam
Director
Rojin is a young Kurdish-Iraqi woman about to take the university entrance exam. Rojin's unhappily married older sister Shilan decides to help her pass at any cost, hoping to give her a more emancipated life. Thus, the sisters inevitably become entangled in a huge network of corruption that connects all parts of society.
Memories on Stone
Screenplay
Kurdish childhood friends Hussein and Alan want to produce a film about the genocide of Kurdish people in Iraq, the Anfal campaign in 1988. They learn that, to achieve veracity by the means of cinema and to face their own identity, it's worth putting everything on the line - even their own life.
Memories on Stone
Director
Kurdish childhood friends Hussein and Alan want to produce a film about the genocide of Kurdish people in Iraq, the Anfal campaign in 1988. They learn that, to achieve veracity by the means of cinema and to face their own identity, it's worth putting everything on the line - even their own life.
Kick Off
Producer
Inside a beat up stadium in Kirkuk, Iraq, live many refugees trying to escape Sadam Hussein's administration. Asu lives with his younger brother who has lost his legs from a landmine. Next door lives Hilin, who has not been able to express her feelings. One of the only sources of happiness for these people who live amid fear of poverty and bombings is soccer. Asu gathers together the Kurdish, Arabs and Turkish in order to hold a soccer match. Although they are of different races, they become close neighbors.
Kick Off
Screenplay
Inside a beat up stadium in Kirkuk, Iraq, live many refugees trying to escape Sadam Hussein's administration. Asu lives with his younger brother who has lost his legs from a landmine. Next door lives Hilin, who has not been able to express her feelings. One of the only sources of happiness for these people who live amid fear of poverty and bombings is soccer. Asu gathers together the Kurdish, Arabs and Turkish in order to hold a soccer match. Although they are of different races, they become close neighbors.
Kick Off
Director
Inside a beat up stadium in Kirkuk, Iraq, live many refugees trying to escape Sadam Hussein's administration. Asu lives with his younger brother who has lost his legs from a landmine. Next door lives Hilin, who has not been able to express her feelings. One of the only sources of happiness for these people who live amid fear of poverty and bombings is soccer. Asu gathers together the Kurdish, Arabs and Turkish in order to hold a soccer match. Although they are of different races, they become close neighbors.
Crossing the Dust
Writer
A road movie set in Iraq in 2003 during the fall of Saddam. Two Kurds are looking for the parents of a five-year-old boy who has been found in the street in tears. His name is Saddam too. At the same time the boy's parents are looking for him everywhere, worried because of the boy's name which is now taboo. All the attempts of the two Kurds to get rid of the child fail: neither the Americans nor the men of religion at the mosque want him. Little Saddam begins to become a real problem. In the streets and all around them, they are surrounded by the chaos and crazy atmosphere of those days, with violence always on the verge of exploding.
Crossing the Dust
Director
A road movie set in Iraq in 2003 during the fall of Saddam. Two Kurds are looking for the parents of a five-year-old boy who has been found in the street in tears. His name is Saddam too. At the same time the boy's parents are looking for him everywhere, worried because of the boy's name which is now taboo. All the attempts of the two Kurds to get rid of the child fail: neither the Americans nor the men of religion at the mosque want him. Little Saddam begins to become a real problem. In the streets and all around them, they are surrounded by the chaos and crazy atmosphere of those days, with violence always on the verge of exploding.