Episode Details

Founded in 2017, the New York Kurdish Film Festival (NYKFF) celebrates the power of Kurdish cinema and storytelling, creating a space for filmmakers to share stories of resilience, identity, memory, and cultural survival. Kurdish filmmakers have used cinema to preserve history, protect cultural memory, and share stories of resilience with the world.

NYKFF provides a platform for Kurdish voices, bringing these stories to audiences and ensuring they continue to be seen, heard, and remembered. Now, you can watch a special selection of films from the festival and meet the filmmakers behind them in this exclusive showcase on CUNY TV.

Catch the full showcase on CUNY TV and right here on YouTube from July 3–Aug 10.
Featured films include — Ezda, The Address, Women’s Village (JinWar), Against Forgetting, and The Hole in the Wall (Biraxane)

Chapters
00:00 Meet the Filmmakers
02:22 A Genocide Survivor's Story: Telling the Truth with Care
07:03 Mediha | Captured by ISIS, Saved by a Camera
11:25 How Do We Preserve Culture? Resistance Under Political Occupation
18:50 NYKFF: Home for Kurdish Cinema
19:57 A Home Away from Home: Bringing Kurds Together Through Film
23:33 What's Next?

Meet the Guests

Xeyal Qertel, founder and president of the New York Kurdish Cultural Center (NYKCC) and director of the annual New York Kurdish Film Festival (NYKFF), also serves as the U.S. representative for the Rojava Film Commune. She leads conversations exploring how cinema reflects resilience, memory, and cultural survival.

Halime Akturk is a Kurdish-Canadian filmmaker and producer from Bakur, North of Kurdistan. Her award-winning work explores immigration, displacement, gender, and human rights, using storytelling to drive cross-cultural dialogue and social change. Halime is the director of the documentary Ezda.

Mediha Alhamad is a Yazidi activist and survivor from Sinjar. She is one of the thousands of Yazidi women kidnapped and enslaved by ISIS during the 2014 Yazidi genocide. Mediha and her remarkable story are also featured in the film Mediha.

Azad Azizyan is a Kurdish-American documentary filmmaker and editor from Rojhelat, East of Kurdistan. In his works, Azad pushes the formal boundaries of the documentary genre and experiments with alternative production methods to make filmmaking more inclusive and collaborative. Azad is the director of Against Forgetting.

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