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      <title>Kurdish Cinema by Özlem Damla Arık</title>
      <link>https://padlet.com/ozlemdamlaarik/8prnkbqczyace0ap</link>
      <description></description>
      <language>en-us</language>
      <pubDate>2021-09-06 16:28:14 UTC</pubDate>
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         <title>A Fatal Dress: Polygamy - Mizgin Mujde Arslan</title>
         <author>ozlemdamlaarik</author>
         <link>https://padlet.com/ozlemdamlaarik/8prnkbqczyace0ap/wish/1719737254</link>
         <description><![CDATA[<div>In Mizgin Mujde Arslan's documentary A Fatal Dress: Polygamy, attention is drawn to the tradition of kumalik, which is still ageless. The documentary, which takes place in Kurdistan, mainly features interviews with women and their circles.</div><div>What interests me most in the documentary is that none of the women are satisfied with their lives. While women complain, their husbands say in their interviews that this is a right that should be given to them. In fact, when women give interviews, they try to mute their voices by getting involved in the interview, and they humiliate women. For this reason, Mizgin Müjde Arslan still draws attention to the ageless tradition of kumalik, and clearly shows the domination of men over women.</div><div>While women are "exploited" people who have to give birth to children, take care of children or work in the fields, men see women as a reward and think that they are tools they can have and dominate when they feel like it. In other words, in this documentary, we witness not only the tradition of kumalik, but also the state of inequality in the home and patriarchy, which is the main source of the tradition of kumalik. In addition to these, in the documentary, we can have information about the men's perspective on women from a wider perspective and the role of the child at this point, as men and children at home also participate in the interviews.&nbsp;</div><div>In addition to the documentary's ability to describe patriarchal masculine domination, it is also important that the documentary begins with the story of Mizgin Mujde Arslan's aunt. Just like in I Flew You Stayed, the director draws his political perspective from a story of her own. This makes the story more real and provides first-hand coverage of politics. The director actually creates a political performance art while telling his own story or using pieces from his own story.</div><div>In my opinion, the documentary A Fatal Dress: Polygamy is very successful in terms of giving a voice to women, showing the role patriarchy has assigned to women based on the kumalik story, and showing how comfortable men are in the system. In addition to the real stories, it can combine the concepts of "me" and "it", that is, "subject", as it includes a story from the director's self.</div><div><br></div>]]></description>
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         <pubDate>2021-09-06 16:57:30 UTC</pubDate>
         <guid>https://padlet.com/ozlemdamlaarik/8prnkbqczyace0ap/wish/1719737254</guid>
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         <title>I Flew You Stayed - Mizgin Mujde Arslan</title>
         <author>ozlemdamlaarik</author>
         <link>https://padlet.com/ozlemdamlaarik/8prnkbqczyace0ap/wish/1719739280</link>
         <description><![CDATA[<div>Mizgin Mujde Arslan's documentary I Flew You Stayed is a work that reveals the political realities of Kurdistan and the Kurdish Freedom Movement as we witness the director's own journey to search for the story of his father, whom she has never seen. Mizgin Mujde Arslan says that she did not write a script for the documentary because she thought it would be fiction then, and goes in front of the camera in the documentary.</div><div>The story begins when Arslan asks about her father in a forum and someone answers "He is my father". Upon this incident, the director follows her father's story and first goes to the village where he grew up in Mardin to talk to her grandparents.</div><div>When Mizgin Müjde Arslan was a baby, her father Ahmet joined the guerrilla in the PKK ranks and went to war. Thereupon, Ahmet, Kızıl Kemal's family, is faced with the pressures of the state. Unable to withstand the war policies of the state and the pressures of the society, Mizgin's mother decides to leave the village. Thinking that she can only take her only child with her, her mother leaves Mizgin in the village and goes with her son Bawer. Mizgin, who has never seen his father, is left without a mother as a child. That's why the director's loneliness and anger towards his family in the personal narrative in the documentary is also seen.</div><div>Mizgin Müjde Arslan first asks her grandparents about her father, whom she has never seen. A single photograph of Ahmet hangs in the house, but it is covered. "He could have lived his Kurdish identity without going to war," says Ahmet's father. Here, it is possible to see the fate of a Kurdish family in the middle of the war. A father who lost his child in the mountains, children left without a mother and father, and fascist state policies that never change... The director conveys the effects of the war in the most real way through her own story.&nbsp;</div><div>The story continues when Mizgin Müjde Arslan meets her father's friends. Arslan always hears good things about her father. With his comradeship, friendship, Kurdish awareness and struggle, she gets to know her father from a place she has never known, while presenting this experience to the audience, she destroys stereotyped perspectives. Throughout the documentary, we can see state policies and stereotyped enemy point of view with examples. Mizgin Mujde Arslan's grandmother tells that when she was still in primary school, they called her "terrorist's daughter" at school. Likewise, there is another scene where Arslan looks at the photographs of the Kurdish freedom movement and war martyrs and listens to their stories. It helps to understand the state-sponsored fascism and the oppressed Kurdish people from a more real place.</div><div>Mizgin Mujde Arslan's journey that started in Mardin continues in Erbil. She listens to her father from the people he protects. Mizgin Mujde Arslan meets the woman hier father adopted in Erbil. She listens to the "fatherhood" that her father never gave her. While the director wants to see her father's grave, she cannot go to her father's grave due to the ongoing war policies and fascist attacks against the Kurds. This shows that the systematic racist policies against the Kurds have not come to an end. In other words, Mizgin Müjde Arslan confronts the never-ending reality of the state again.</div><div>In the story that ends in Istanbul after Erbil, Mizgin Mujde Arslan confronts her mother this time. Incorporating her mother's perspective is an important detail here. Kurds are never attacked individually or just as guerrillas on the mountain. These systematic attacks become the fate of a family. There is the reality of a Kurdish woman, whom the state has brought to a situation where she has to give up her child.&nbsp;</div><div>In this documentary, where she goes in front of the cameras and follows her father's story, the director is quite capable of describing the war between the Turkish State and the PKK, the state's war policies, the chauvinism reflected in the society, and the racist order that the Kurds are still exposed to, with a political reality.</div>]]></description>
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         <pubDate>2021-09-06 16:59:05 UTC</pubDate>
         <guid>https://padlet.com/ozlemdamlaarik/8prnkbqczyace0ap/wish/1719739280</guid>
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         <title>Yılmaz Güney - Yol</title>
         <author>ozlemdamlaarik</author>
         <link>https://padlet.com/ozlemdamlaarik/8prnkbqczyace0ap/wish/1719829330</link>
         <description><![CDATA[<blockquote><em>Pain, oppression, poverty, blood and tears are not the destiny of the Kurdish people. We want to sing songs of love and freedom in our own land, in our own language. (Yilmaz Guney)</em></blockquote><div><br><br>The story of the prisoners in the İmralı prison is told in the movie Yol. The martial law conditions in the country affected the prisons in the same way. Through the stories of the prisoners, the concept of authority inside and outside the prison is explained when they go on vacation leave. I think that Yılmaz Güney successfully carried out an anti-government political transmission by not shying away from declaring his authority inside and outside. <br>In my opinion, it is desired to draw attention to the similarity of the conditions inside the prison and the external conditions. It is told that there is no difference between the outside and the inside, and that the freedoms are suspended altogether and the country has turned into a huge prison. The best example of this is the curfews applied outside. In addition, the fact that one of the characters, Yusuf, is on leave and being kept under surveillance due to missing documents shows that the outside has turned into a prison with controls. Yusuf's unfortunate story takes on the representation of the coup's impact on society and the oppressive regime.<br>In the story of Mevlat, who dreams of reuniting with his beloved, the concept of family assumes the representation of the oppressive regime. His fiancee's family puts pressure on Mevlat. I think it is important to represent the relationship between social norms and authoritarian regimes through the concept of family. The smallest unit of society that feeds the representation of authoritarian and class states is the family.<br>Another character Ömer goes to his village, Urfa. There is a conflict between the Turkish Army and the PKK here. Endless conflict, gunfire and life experience in the war process take on representation. Ömer's refusal to go to prison and war tells the desperation of the Kurdish people and the oppression they are subjected to. Because both of them are oppressive from the other, another face of the state. It is that the conditions of fascism imprison people between inside and outside.<br>Social norms and people are at the forefront in Mehmet Salih's story, just like in Mevlat's story. It is told that people's view of the relationship, the reproduction of the social norms of the family, and the fact that the reason for this is the state policies.<br>Seyyit Ali's story, unlike the others, is the most dramatic. It is also handled over the concept of "custom". Seyyit Ali hears that his wife, Zine, is immoral and according to the customs, he has to kill her. But a dilemma falls. Love and custom are in conflict with each other. Here, the director describes Seyyit Ali's struggle against the sense of forgiveness.<br>In the film, many class-social-political themes such as poverty, military and political oppression, feudal reaction and religious fanaticism are handled through the stories of the characters. The director describes the reproduction of the military coup in Kurdistan, the state violence and the oppressive regime through captivity and freedom.<br>The removal of Yılmaz Güney from his Turkish citizenship right after the movie is the most concrete example of the state policies to be told in the movie.<br><br>As he said, <strong><em>“Yol is the voice of my people that cannot be silenced! Hi… Thousand Hi!”</em></strong><br><br><br></div>]]></description>
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         <pubDate>2021-09-06 18:08:41 UTC</pubDate>
         <guid>https://padlet.com/ozlemdamlaarik/8prnkbqczyace0ap/wish/1719829330</guid>
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