Line Producer
Zilan, a young woman, returns to her home town looking for traces of her dead brother, killed by ISIS. But her town is not what it used to be: social and political tensions have escalated into a state of war. The people have risen up to demand their political autonomy and the police and army repress them with brutal force. But the city’s resistance will go on for more than 100 days and Zilan will not remain a passive witness. Based on the diaries of those who died fighting and the testimony of survivors, who are the protagonists of the film, Çelik's first feature explores concepts such as hope, friendship, sacrifice and loss in the struggle for freedom of a group of young people.
Cinematography
Kurds call it Rojava, or the West, the place where the sun sets on Kurdish lands: the north of Syria, the stage of the most violent war of our times, painted in blood by the mass-rape and mass-killings of the ISIS terrorist organization. It is here, in Rojava, in three destroyed cities, that three separate stories tell the story of how savage war destroys not only our cities, but our people, too. Sinjar, Kobanî and Jazaa are three towns that display the most destructive impact of modern war. All three are in the process of being rebuilt at the moment. The people who live here have transformed their tragedies into a determination to leave a better Rojava for future generations.