VOA标准英语2009年-First Kurdish Film Festival in US Showcase

By Carolyn Weaver¹
New York
27 October 2009

Organizers call it "a cinema across borders," the first-ever festival of Kurdish film in the United States. The films chosen for the five-day event at New York University focused on a people widely dispersed², from those who still live in traditionally Kurdish areas in the Middle East, to Europe and North America. Across sometimes impassable barriers, they keep alive a shared language and cultural identity.

 
Sally Eberhardt helped organize the festival at New York University 
That struggle is both mirrored and sustained by a burgeoning³ Kurdish cinema, according to Sally Eberhardt, a director of the festival. She said organizers were confronted with a wealth of good films, but had slots for only nine full-length films and ten shorts.

“Choosing was incredibly difficult,” she said. “We were primarily limiting ourselves to films from the last few years, but even in doing that, there were so many films to watch. There’s no shortage of amazing Kurdish film out there."

Yol, which won the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1982, was chosen to represent the rich history of Kurdish cinema. The story of five Kurdish prisoners in Turkey, it was written and directed by the late Yilmaz Güney when he himself was in prison. His assistant, Şerif Gören, shot the film based on the director's notes smuggled⁴ out of prison.

Eberhardt says festival organizers screened films from all the regions where Kurds now live, their culture threatened by borders, war, repression⁵ or sheer distance. The Kurds' traditional homeland, called Kurdistan, touches on parts of Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran and Armenia, but Kurdish communities now can be found in many other countries, too.

 
In Bawke, a young boy is abandoned by his father
Sadness at the loss of home, or separation from other Kurdish people and culture, pervades⁶ many of the films chosen for the event. "Bawke," for example, by Hisham Zaman, is about a Kurdish father of a young son who faces being deported⁷ from Norway, their latest hope for refuge in a seemingly endless journey. He pretends not to know his son after he is arrested, so that the boy will be able to remain behind and have a better life.

"The theme of borders seems to go through a lot of the films,” Eberhardt said, “and the divisions between the Kurds that happen by no fault of their own, through borders that were established decades ago, that they have had to live with ever since."

Half Moon, by Bahman Ghobadi, was the one film that is explicitly⁸ about borders. It follows the journey of Kurdish musicians living in Iran who travel to Iraq to celebrate the end of Saddam Hussein's rule, and new openness for Kurdish music. "In weaving their way from Iran through Turkey into Iraq,” Eberhardt said, “it becomes this brilliant metaphor⁹ for how can it be that people who were once united now have to take this torturous¹⁰ path to go from one section of where they live, to another section of where they live."

Eberhardt noted¹¹ that prejudice against Kurds and repression of their language and culture continue in some countries. The Storm, by Kazim Öz, which made its U.S. premiere at the festival, is about an apolitical young man who leaves his village in southern Turkey in the early 1990s to attend university in Istanbul. There he experiences government-backed violence against Kurdish activists¹², and is radicalized. "He witnesses what's happening in Istanbul, and the repression that's starting to mount there,” Eberhardt said. “He makes this really serious journey within the film."

Films by and about Kurdish women were another theme of the festival. In Dengbej Women, by the Women’s Collective of Atölyemor/Filmmor Women’s Cooperative, female dengbej, or traditional Kurdish bards¹³, tell their stories, and sing their sad music. For many, a life in music still means rejection¹⁴ by their families.

 
A scene from Vodka Lemon
A dark comedy, Vodka Lemon, by Hiner Saleem, closed the festival. Set in a wintry mountain village in Armenia, it tells the story of a widower¹⁵ who, during visits to his wife’s gravesite, happens to meet and fall in love with a much younger widow. She is also a barmaid who serves up the drink of the title in a little shack¹⁶ in the snowy landscape.

The festival also featured a rare panel discussion among five Kurdish filmmakers from around the world, including Saleem, Ghobadi, Öz, Zaman and Jano Rosebiani, who made the feature film, Jiyan, about the aftermath of the 1988 gas attack on the Iraqi Kurdish town of Halabja.

1 weaver   

n.织布工；编织者

参考例句：

• She was a fast weaver and the cloth was very good.她织布织得很快，而且布的质量很好。
• The eager weaver did not notice my confusion.热心的纺织工人没有注意到我的狼狈相。

2 dispersed   

adj. 被驱散的, 被分散的, 散布的

参考例句：

• The clouds dispersed themselves. 云散了。
• After school the children dispersed to their homes. 放学后，孩子们四散回家了。

3 burgeoning   

adj.迅速成长的，迅速发展的v.发芽，抽枝( burgeon的现在分词 )；迅速发展；发（芽），抽（枝）

参考例句：

• Our company's business is burgeoning now. 我们公司的业务现在发展很迅速。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• These efforts were insufficient to contain the burgeoning crisis. 这些努力不足以抑制迅速扩散的危机。 来自辞典例句

4 smuggled   

水货

参考例句：

• The customs officer confiscated the smuggled goods. 海关官员没收了走私品。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Those smuggled goods have been detained by the port office. 那些走私货物被港务局扣押了。 来自互联网

5 repression   

n.镇压，抑制，抑压

参考例句：

• The repression of your true feelings is harmful to your health.压抑你的真实感情有害健康。
• This touched off a new storm against violent repression.这引起了反对暴力镇压的新风暴。

6 pervades   

v.遍及，弥漫( pervade的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• An unpleasant smell pervades the house. 一种难闻的气味弥漫了全屋。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• An atmosphere of pessimism pervades the economy. 悲观的气氛笼罩着整个经济。 来自辞典例句

7 deported   

v.将…驱逐出境( deport的过去式和过去分词 )；举止

参考例句：

• They stripped me of my citizenship and deported me. 他们剥夺我的公民资格，将我驱逐出境。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The convicts were deported to a deserted island. 罪犯们被流放到一个荒岛。 来自《简明英汉词典》

8 explicitly   

ad.明确地，显然地

参考例句：

• The plan does not explicitly endorse the private ownership of land. 该计划没有明确地支持土地私有制。
• SARA amended section 113 to provide explicitly for a right to contribution. 《最高基金修正与再授权法案》修正了第123条，清楚地规定了分配权。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法

9 metaphor   

n.隐喻，暗喻

参考例句：

• Using metaphor,we say that computers have senses and a memory.打个比方，我们可以说计算机有感觉和记忆力。
• In poetry the rose is often a metaphor for love.玫瑰在诗中通常作为爱的象征。

10 torturous   

adj. 痛苦的

参考例句：

• His breathing was torturous.他的呼吸充满痛苦。
• This is a torturous agonizing way to kill someone.这是一种让人受尽折磨、痛苦难忍的杀人方法。

11 noted   

adj.著名的，知名的

参考例句：

• The local hotel is noted for its good table.当地的那家酒店以餐食精美而著称。
• Jim is noted for arriving late for work.吉姆上班迟到出了名。

12 activists   

n.（政治活动的）积极分子，活动家( activist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• His research work was attacked by animal rights activists . 他的研究受到了动物权益维护者的抨击。
• Party activists with lower middle class pedigrees are numerous. 党的激进分子中有很多出身于中产阶级下层。 来自《简明英汉词典》

13 bards   

n.诗人( bard的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• There were feasts and drinking and singing by the bards. 他们欢宴狂饮，还有吟游诗人的歌唱作伴助兴。 来自英汉非文学 - 历史
• Round many western islands have I been Which Bards in fealty to Apollo hold. 还有多少西方的海岛，歌都已使它们向阿波罗臣服。 来自英汉 - 翻译样例 - 文学

14 rejection   

n.拒绝，被拒，抛弃，被弃

参考例句：

• He decided not to approach her for fear of rejection.他因怕遭拒绝决定不再去找她。
• The rejection plunged her into the dark depths of despair.遭到拒绝使她陷入了绝望的深渊。

15 widower   

n.鳏夫

参考例句：

• George was a widower with six young children.乔治是个带著六个小孩子的鳏夫。
• Having been a widower for many years,he finally decided to marry again.丧偶多年后，他终于决定二婚了。

16 shack   

adj.简陋的小屋，窝棚

参考例句：

• He had to sit down five times before he reached his shack.在走到他的茅棚以前，他不得不坐在地上歇了五次。
• The boys made a shack out of the old boards in the backyard.男孩们在后院用旧木板盖起一间小木屋。