Bahman Ghobadi

After their father dies, a family of five are forced to survive on their own in a Kurdish village on the border of Iran and Iraq. Matters are made worse when 12 year old Ayoub, the new head of the family, is told that his handicapped brother, Madi, needs an ...  (more)

Turtles can fly tells the story of a group of young children near the Turkey-Iran border. They clean up mines and wait for the Saddam regime to fall.  (more)

Irreverent city engineer Behzad comes to a rural Kurdish village in Iran to keep vigil for a dying relative. In the meanwhile the film follows his efforts to fit in with the local community and how he changes his own attitudes as a result.  (more)

The first of four installments in the groundbreaking Heartbeat of the World anthology film series. Comprised of several short films by some of the world's most exciting directors, Words with Gods follows the theme of religion - specifically as it relates to an ...  (more)

Kurdish-Iranian poet Sahel has just been released from a thirty-year prison sentence in Iran. Now the one thing keeping him going is the thought of finding his wife, who thinks he's been dead for over twenty years.  (more)

Today Iranian cinema is one of the most highly regarded national cinemas in the world, regularly winning festival awards and critical acclaim for films which combine remarkable artistry and social relevance. Iran: A Cinematographic Revolution traces the development ...  (more)

Iranian musicians Negar and Ashkan look for band members to play at a London concert ... and the visa that allows them to leave Tehran to do so.  (more)

Mamo, an old and legendary Kurdish musician living in Iran, plans to give one final concert in Iraqi Kurdistan. After seven months of trying to get a permit and rounding up his ten sons, he sets out for the long and troublesome journey in a derelict bus, denying a ...  (more)

During the war between Iran and Iraq, a group of Iranian Kurd musicians set off on an almost impossible mission. They will try to find Hanareh, a singer with a magic voice who crossed the border and may now be in danger in the Iraqi Kurdistan. As in his previous ...  (more)

For Nariman the pilot and Helly Luv, an aspiring singer, being Kurdish is not just an identity; it’s a full-time job. Nariman needs young recruits for his flying school—a goal made darkly comic since he just survived a plane crash—while the illustrious Helly ...  (more)

Itinerant Kurdish teachers, carrying blackboards on their backs, look for students in the hills and villages of Iran, near the Iraqi border during the Iran-Iraq war. Said falls in with a group of old men looking for their bombed-out village; he offers to guide them ...  (more)

This documentary shows us how a Daf elaborated. It's about a family that all their children are blinded and they're running their family business. They're making Dafs which is an Iranian hand percussion musical instrument and nowadays it's mostly played in Kurdish ...  (more)

Kurdish composer Boran is no longer able to see the ocean, obstructed by a new building, and a tragedy befalls him…  (more)

Akihiro, who lives in an old apartment building in Tokyo, makes songs and sings on the streets; Fei, a street musician who makes a living making a living by making the Iranian traditional instrument 'Daf', but does not neglect to play every night; A film director ...  (more)