The documentary film “Lêger” about a search for traces of the Kurds in Central Anatolia will be shown today in Vienna’s Haydn cinema. The special screening is an event organized by the Kurdish Society Center Vienna in solidarity with those affected by the devastating earthquake series in the Turkish-Syrian border region. All proceeds will be donated to Disaster Relief Red Day of Kurdistan eVthe Austrian branch of the Kurdish Red Crescent Movement.
Lêger describes a story that begins with the reflex of searching for one’s own roots. It leads first into the world of a family, then into the world of a tribe and finally into the world of a nation. “When we reach the world of the nation, we realize that this is not a personal issue, but a humanity issue. What our protagonist is going through is no longer an isolated case and is becoming a kind of human tragedy.” – Regisseur Omer Leventoglu.
Rescue sirens, the feet of hurrying nurses in a hospital somewhere in Germany. The 95-year-old Sultan, who has never asked anyone for anything in her life, calls out a name. “Words that sounded like a poem: My brother Hüseyin!” But nobody can relate to that, everyone thinks that the old woman is somehow in other spheres. This is how the film by Esin Akgül Güneş and Ömer Leventoğlu begins, which was produced by the Platform of Kurds from Central Anatolia (PKAN) and the Council of Kurds in Austria (Feykom).
Sultan does not die immediately and her daughter Çiğdem learns that her mother lost said brother on a long, involuntary journey in Turkey. Çiğdem, who has been banned from entering Turkey, is trying to persuade her niece Gulan to go in search of clues in Istanbul. Only reluctantly, for the sake of her aunt, does she head east, first to Konya, from where her family came to the metropolis on the Bosphorus. Then the journey continues to Kurdistan, to the places of the ancestors.
More than the search for a life story
With impressive landscape images, shepherd’s flute music and exciting interlocutors in the interviews, “Lêger” invites you to experience more than the search for a life story.
Infos
Lêger: A Journey into the History of the Kurds in Central Anatolia
von Esin Akgul Gunes & Omer Leventoglu
In Kurmancî – with German subtitles
When where?
February 26, 2023 at 4 p.m
Vienna English Cinema Haydn
Mariahilfer Strasse 57, 1060 Vienna
Admission: 10 euros
