I want to plant flowers anywhere the enemy rampages and burns forest

                 Women in Kurdistan, Gerd Schumann

The kurdish people don’t appear on maps

If we look at a map for the place where approximately 40 million Kurds in the world live, we will not find it. If we seek what is Kurdistan, if it is a town, city or state...We will not find it. Kurdistan is an imagined territory. It is the historical territory shared by Kurds with many other ethnicities and since time immemorial is the subject of conquests, partitions or assimilation: the Persian Empire, the Ottoman, colonialism and the distribution of that territory after the World War between Turkey, Syria Iraq and Iran are proof of that .

The denial of their culture, identity and language is imprinted on the skin of the Kurdish people a rebellious spirit that drives a liberation movement based on self-criticism for more than 40 years. This fact has led them to reject the State and its structures and develop the Democratic Confederalism, a new political, social and economic model.

Project beginning

On 19 October 2015 we decided to travel to Bakur ("north" in kurmandjí), a territory that refers to the part of Kurdistan that lies within the borders of the Republic of Turkey. Once there, and not before, we decided to start this documentary.

Arriving at Amed, the capital of Kurdistan, we find people eager to explain that Bakur was undergoing a revolutionary process and, in addition, they were suffering repression of the Turkish state who control, punishe, detain and kill in order to stop the political project of the Kurdish movement.

During our stay we live the Declaration of Autonomy of many Kurdish cities and neighborhoods that were declared 'free zones' of the Turkish army protecting themselves with barricades and checkpoints. We also witnessed the violence with which the Turkish State behaves on the rebel kurdish population, and which still today subdues with such things as the curfew or the bombing of their cities.

Characteristics of the project

It is a totally independent project. We don’t have subsidies from public or private institutions.

Despite the conditions of war in which the Kurdish people in Bakur live, this is not a documentary about the war. We captured a moment in a process of resistance that started in 1978 and lasts until today with different forms and in different spaces of resistance and struggle. The documentary tells how Kurds in Turkey take the first steps to achieve their goal: a society based on the union of confederations whose axes are direct democracy, women's liberation and social ecology.

In Rojava, the Western territory of Kurdistan located within the borders of Syria, the war in the country has caused a vacuum of power that has allowed the idea of Democratic Confederalism to develop more widely. While In Turkey, Kurdish Liberation Movement has been presenting for elections with different pro-Kurdish parties for years. Now, they have gained the control in the cities with Kurdish majority with the Free Democratic Party (HDP), the actual pro-Kurdish party. There are differences in practice, but they have a common objective and resistance. It is, moreover, a proposal that goes beyond the interests of the Kurdish ethnic group and proposes a solution of peaceful coexistence for the middle east and for humanity.

What we want to explain? 

Why ethnic minorities in South-Eastern Turkey are still resisting the process of assimilation of the Turkish State?

How is the Kurdish liberation movement organized in Bakur? What are the social, political and economic structures that have developed independent of the State and capitalism? 

Upon what is democratic confederalism based?

What is the impact of the movement in civil society?

Will the struggle in Rojava and Bakur be able to configure new revolutionary concepts?

With whom have we spoken?

The documentary includes interviews with very different testimonies. Mayors and mayoresses repressed by Turkey; members of various committees of the democratic society Congress (DTK) and the Congress of free women (KJA), activists from other movements, sociologists and researchers.

Synopsis and datasheet

It is said in Kurdistan that the Sun rises in the West in reference to the revolutionary process in Rojava, which means "West" in kurmandji. This autonomous region of Syria is famous around the world for being able to govern themselves democratically and defend themselves in the middle of a country at war. "The North Sun. Building the autonomy in Bakur" is a tribute to its neighbouring sister, the northern region of Kurdistan, in the southeast of Turkey, which also resists the assimilation of the Turkish State and the imposition of the dominant system.

Production title: El Sol del Nord. Construïnt l'autonomia a Bakur (The North Sun. Building the autonomy in Bakur)

Project length: 65 min.

Production: IVARDIA Produccions

Genre: Documentary

Original languages: Kurmanji, Turkish, English, Catalan

Languages: English, Catalan, Spanish

Year: 2018

Why do we need you?

Bakur trapped us in two frantic months of meetings, reflections and discoveries that we recorded with our cameras.  Upon returning from our trip last December, we feel the responsibility to bring these voices to our territory to understand and learn about the revolution. Since then, we have lived six months of intense work to give shape to the copyright material. To be able to complete the project we need 6,000 euros. This money will not cover travel, only necessary elements in order to finish the documentary.

What will we do with your donations?

The money raised thanks to your help will be primarily earmarked for post-production of the documentary, but also to cover some of the costs of the production and cost associated with the distribution of the tape.  See below for detaiiled explanation of these costs.

Postproduction

• Translation and subtitling of the documentary and trailer from kurdish or turkish to catalan, spanish and english.

• Postproduction of the image and the sound of the documentary and the trailer

• Graphics design.

Distribution of the documentary

• Editing and designing of the DVD

• Copies of the DVD

• Hosting of website

• Promotion of the documentary (merchandising, communication, presentation to festivals).

Translation team

Col·lectivaT is a group of people living in Catalonia, who were born in different countries of the Middle East and Southern Europe, and still feel they belong to both places. They know in depth the particular socio-political issues related to their countries of birth. Not only they are activists who use this knowledge to defend and link the international revolutionary struggles, but also they are people of various multidisciplinary profiles and researchers who apply the appropriate methods to the field of languages and communication. That is why they have decided to come together as a group, with the aim of building a cooperative, which mainly offers cultural translation services and research regarding the issues of the Middle East from a critical perspective. They collaborate in the documentary project 'El Sol del Nord' with the translation of the interviews from Kurdish and Turkish to Catalan.

Predicted schedule

We'd like to be able to release "El Sol del Nord" in November 2016. The documentary is currently in the first phase of editing.  Our idea is to continue with the phase of the editing throughout the summer. Parallel to editing, a collective of translators will do the planned translations, subtitling and synchronization with the image. By mid-September, we hope to have the film ready for the last phase of post-production, to edit both the image and the sound. In a month and a half, we would have the final tape. Throughout the months of November and December, you will receive your rewards and it is when we would like to release the documentary.

It is a collective project. Who collaborates with us?

Ivardia Produccions
Plataforma Azadî
Rojava Azadî Madrid

Music: Kaya Project

Sound: Sol de Sants, Guillem Cortina

Kurdish/turkish translations: Col·ectivaT (Özgür Güneş Öztürk, Pelin Dogan, Baybars Külebi, Nihal Mumcu, Massoud Sharidi Dryaz and Federica Capranico)

English/french translations: Daniel Peralba, Jordi Lillo, Miquel Rodríguez, María Fernanda Hurtado, Irene Ortiz

Design: Mariona Asín Pueyo, Arnau Terrassa Gomar, Eva Martín Escobar

Filming: Camila, Omar, Gunes and all those who welcomed us into their homes and made the interviews possible.

If we overcome the 6000 euros we could translate the documentary into more languages, improve its quality and recover some of the costs of filming the documentary, mainly in audiovisual material! Will you help us?

NOTE: Those who want to participate in financing the film but do not have a credit card, can send us an email to [email protected] and we will provide an account number.

+ Info

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