Fatma Edemen

The Kurdish people, lacking a sovereign state of their own, reside within the boundaries of Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria, where they are subjected to the rules and identities of these nations, often facing restrictions on their cultural expression. This situation has disabled their entry into the filmmaking, with documentaries becoming their preferred medium due to its cost-effectiveness and simpler technical demands. These documentaries typically delve into the Kurds' painful historical experiences. Big Village (2020), directed by Beri Shalmashi and Lyangelo Vazquez, stands out as the first Kurdish interactive web documentary (i-doc). It intricately weaves personal and social narratives, focusing on several families and a Kurdish insurgent group from Eastern Kurdistan. The i-doc explores the stories of the former residents of Gewredê, a village that has since vanished. It uniquely blends old photos and video clips to craft its narrative. This study aims to analyse Big Village through the lens of the insurgents' memories, the inherited memories of their children, and the use of archival materials, examining how an interactive documentary can effectively communicate historical traumas to modern viewers.

This paper explores the role of Kurdish film festivals in Europe as sites of diasporic heritage, cultural memory, and decolonization. The festivals, which prioritize audience development and community engagement, aim to represent the stateless Kurdish nation and build supportive communities that advocate for Kurdish national recognition. The festivals also provide a space for diasporic communities to express their identity on their own terms, free from the constraints of colonial legacies. Through their participation, Kurdish-identified diasporic communities can redefine their cultural heritage and challenge essentialized notions of heritage and identity shaped by colonial legacies. The paper draws on the concepts of travelling memory and stateless memory to explore how diasporic communities and Kurdish films navigate their cultural practices and rituals in movement, both in a literal and metaphorical sense. This paper argues that the interplay between travelling memory, stateless memory, and decolonization shapes diasporic heritage and identity. Although the paper discusses the decolonial efforts of Kurdish film festivals based in diaspora, it focuses specifically on the decolonial strategies of the Berlin Kurdish Film Festival (2002). The research comprises participant observation at the Berlin Kurdish Film Festival's 2022 edition and the analysis of the festival's programme to obtain outputs. Overall, this paper highlights the significant role of Kurdish film festivals in shaping collective memory and identity within the Kurdish diaspora.

Michael Rothberg introduced the concept of multidirectional memory in Multidirectional Memory: Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of Decolonization (2009). Later, many other scholars used his idea to analyze works of art, including films. Although multidirectional memory generally focuses on the possibility of establishing solidarity between memories/traumas that are geographically or culturally distant from each other, in this article it will be argued that this concept is also crucial within coexisting multicultural and multitraumatic societies. The concept of multidirectional memory, and subsequently concepts such as travelling memory and postmemory, will be examined through the analysis of an independent production from Turkey, Özcan Alper's film Future Lasts Forever (Gelecek Uzun Sürer, 2011). With the help of critical film analysis, the multidirectional memory of Turkey's traumatic past will be discussed as an opportunity to practice solidarity.