Turtles Can Fly

Life on the Border

The fate of thousands of people is unified under the tarpaulins of the refugee camps in Kobanê and in Shingal. Kurdish filmmaker Bahman Ghobadi has given eight children the opportunity to use a camera to tell their own stories. Each film gives us a glimpse into the plight of the children, as seen through their own eyes. Their stories tell of young people with their whole lives ahead of them, though they’ve already lost almost everything. At a certain point, the film crew leaves the camp and follows the 13-year-old Mahmod and his sister in the search for his parent‘s house in Kobanê. The town has been ravaged by the war and all the children find is rubble. The eight films reveal the courage and openness of the young filmmakers, who share their stories with great intensity, realism and poetry, despite their harsh fate.

Daf

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 folk songs.

A Time for Drunken Horses

After their father dies, a family of five children are forced to survive on their own in a Kurdish village on the border of Iran and Iraq.

The Wind Will Carry Us

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.

All My Mothers

During the 30 years of the Baath ruling under Sadam in Iraq thousands of Iraqi Kurds and Shiites were either killed or disappeared. Around 182,000 people lost their lives when 4500 villages and townships were destroyed in Kirkuk, Soleimanieh, Dahouk and Erbil regions with the aim to exterminate the Kurds and to arabize Kurdistan. Having found one of the mass graves after 24 years in the southern deserts of Iraq, became the basis of a movie describing the living conditions of these villages inhabited by mostly mothers, daughters, wives or sisters of those victims.

Marooned in Iraq

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 films, this Kurdish director is again focusing on the oppression of his people.

No One Knows About Persian Cats

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.

Blackboards

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, and takes as his wife Halaleh, the clan's lone woman, a widow with a young son. Reeboir attaches himself to a dozen pre-teen boys weighed down by contraband they carry across the border; they're mules, always on the move. Said and Reeboir try to teach as their potential students keep walking. Danger is close; armed soldiers patrol the skies, the roads, and the border. Is there a role for a teacher? Is there hope?

Half Moon Arabic

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 recurring vision of his own death at half moon. Halfway the party halts at a small village to pick up female singer Hesho, which will only add to the difficulty of the undertaking, as it is forbidden for Iranian women to sing in public, let alone in the company of men. But Mamo is determined to carry through, if not for the gullible antics of the bus driver.

Life in Fog

Nezhad is fourteen years old and both of his parents have passed away. He is forced to leave school and take care of the family. To earn a living, he decides to smuggle goods across the Iranian-Iraqi border with his mule. One day, however, the mule breaks a leg.

Iran: A Cinematographic Revolution

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 of this film industry, which has always been closely intertwined with the country's tumultuous political history, from the decades-long reign of Reza Shah Pahlevi and his son, the rise of Khomeini and the birth of the Islamic Republic, the seizure by militants of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, and the devastating war with Iraq.

Words with Gods

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 individual's relationship with his/her god or gods...or the lack thereof. In Words with Gods, each director recounts a narrative centered around human fragility, as well as environmental and cultural crises involving specific religions with which each has a personal relationship; including early Aboriginal Spirituality, Umbanda, Buddhism, the Abrahamic faiths, Hinduism, and Atheism. An animated sequence by Mexican animator Maribel Martinez is woven through each of the film segments, with each segment narratively connected as a feature-length film.

Rhino Season

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.

Mardan

A police officer finds himself haunted by a traumatic childhood memory as he searches for a missing man in the rugged mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan, in this striking feature debut by Batin Ghobadi.

About 111 Girls

An Iranian official (Reza Behboodi) tries to find husbands for a group of young Kurdish women who are threatening to kill themselves because of the scarcity of marriageable men Due to wars, bad economy, and politics.

The Four Walls

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

Mifune

Kresten, newly wed, is on the threshold of a great career success in his father-in-law’s company. But when the death of his own father takes him back to his poverty-stricken childhood home, far out in the country, his career plans fall apart. For one thing he has to deal with his loveable, backward brother, who is now all alone; for another, he meets a stunning woman who comes to the farm as a housekeeper, in disguise of her real profession as a call-girl.

All Quiet on the Western Front

When a group of idealistic young men join the German Army during the Great War, they are assigned to the Western Front, where their patriotism is destroyed by the harsh realities of combat.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

An alcoholic ex-football player drinks his days away, having failed to come to terms with his sexuality and his real feelings for his football buddy who died after an ambiguous accident. His wife is crucified by her desperation to make him desire her: but he resists the affections of his wife. His reunion with his father—who is dying of cancer—jogs a host of memories and revelations for both father and son.

Strange Days

In the last days of 1999, ex-cop turned street hustler Lenny Nero receives a disc which contains the memories of the murder of a prostitute. With the help of bodyguard Mace, he starts to investigate and is pulled deeper and deeper in a whirl of murder, blackmail and intrigue.

The Celebration

The family of a wealthy businessman gather to celebrate his 60th birthday. During the course of the party, his eldest son presents a speech that reveals a devastating secret that turns the night into a battle of truth and denial.

Once Upon a Time in America

A former Prohibition-era Jewish gangster returns to the Lower East Side of Manhattan over thirty years later, where he once again must confront the ghosts and regrets of his old life.

Grbavica: The Land of My Dreams

A woman and her daughter struggle to make their way through the aftermath of the Balkan war.

Romeo + Juliet

In this contemporary take on William Shakespeare's classic tragedy, the Montagues and Capulets have moved their ongoing feud to the sweltering suburb of Verona Beach, where Romeo and Juliet fall in love and secretly wed. Though the film is visually modern, the bard's dialogue remains.

As It Is in Heaven

A musical romantic tragedy about a famous composer who moves back to his small hometown after having had heart troubles. His search for a simple everyday life leads him into teaching the local church choir, which is not easily accepted by the town yet the choir builds a great love for their teacher.

Casablanca

In Casablanca, Morocco in December 1941, a cynical American expatriate meets a former lover, with unforeseen complications.

The English Patient

In the 1930s, Count Almásy is a Hungarian map maker employed by the Royal Geographical Society to chart the vast expanses of the Sahara Desert along with several other prominent explorers. As World War II unfolds, Almásy enters into a world of love, betrayal, and politics.

Summer in Berlin

An intimate study of two women friends who come to each other because of troubles with everyday life and with men and thus try to enjoy a life based on their ideas.

Once Were Warriors

In a violent relationship, it takes a mother’s strength to save herself and her children from the man she loved. Once Were Warriors is a violent love story set against a contemporary urban backdrop.

Monster

In 1989, prostitute Aileen Wuornos befriends and enters a relationship with a young woman named Selby. Determined to straighten out her life, Aileen's limited education lands her back on the corner. She's raped by a trick, who she kills. A string of murder and robbery follows that ultimately leads Aileen to becoming America's first female serial killer.

Harold and Maude

A deadpan young man obsessed with death meets an eccentric septuagenarian who teaches him to live life to the fullest.