Tag: Kurdish

TIFF21 REVIEW: Zalava [2021]

Jared Mobarak

Below the waist. The inhabitants of Zalava were never meant to stay in one place. Their ancestors were nomads and now they’ve become farmers. So where then did the demons come from? Were they always here waiting for settlers? Did their relatives bring the evil with them? Or has the restlessness in their bones from staying in one place for so long simply made them stir crazy to the point of needing those spirits to provide context for their anxieties? They admit to the sergeant (Navid Pourfaraj‘s Massoud) from the…

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TIFF14 REVIEW: Dondurma [Ice Cream] [2014]

Jared Mobarak

“I’ll take whatever you have” Instead of Scott Joplin‘s “The Entertainer” signifying an oncoming ice cream truck here in the States, Turkish children must keep an ear open for the whir of a motorcycle. No matter how engaged in a game of soccer the young village boys are, they are off to the races as soon as the prospect of this rarity of sweets arrives. Being that they have no money—and that the visiting purveyor knows this to be true—the barter system comes into effect in order for iron pipes,…

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