Best movies like Öcalan and the Kurdish Question

In a remote, isolated Yazidi Kurdish village in post-Soviet Armenia, Hamo, a widower with a pitiful pension and three worthless sons, travels daily to his wife's grave. There he meets the lovely Nina, who is communing with her late husband. The two are penniless--she works in a local bar that is about to close down, while he has been forced to start selling his meager possessions. All seems hopelessly bleak, yet when Hamo begins to court Nina, their unexpected love revitalizes them.

Irreverent city engineer Behzad comes to a rural Kurdish village in Iran to keep vigil for a dying relative. In the meanwhile the film follows his efforts to fit in with the local community and how he changes his own attitudes as a result.

In 2009, Iranian Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari was covering Iran's volatile elections for Newsweek. One of the few reporters living in the country with access to US media, he made an appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, in a taped interview with comedian Jason Jones. The interview was intended as satire, but if the Tehran authorities got the joke they didn't like it - and it would quickly came back to haunt Bahari when he was rousted from his family home and thrown into prison.

With unprecedented access, this documentary follows the extraordinary journey of “Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently”—a group of anonymous citizen journalists who banded together after their homeland was overtaken by ISIS—as they risk their lives to stand up against one of the greatest evils in the world today.

The CIA’s hunt is on for the mastermind of a wave of terrorist attacks. Roger Ferris is the agency’s man on the ground, moving from place to place, scrambling to stay ahead of ever-shifting events. An eye in the sky – a satellite link – watches Ferris. At the other end of that real-time link is the CIA’s Ed Hoffman, strategizing events from thousands of miles away. And as Ferris nears the target, he discovers trust can be just as dangerous as it is necessary for survival.

Two stories separated by 1400 years. After losing his mother in the midst of a war-torn country, an Iraqi child learns the importance and power of patience by discovering the historical story of Lady Fatima and her suffering.

Turtles can fly tells the story of a group of young children near the Turkey-Iran border. They clean up mines and wait for the Saddam regime to fall.

Bahar, the commanding officer of the Daughters of the Sun, a battalion made up entirely of Kurdish female soldiers, is on the cusp of liberating their town, which has been overrun by ISIS extremists.

An American is kidnapped while attending a conference in Cairo and ends up in prison in Iran on spying charges. His wife goes to Iran, determined to get him out.

Mamo, an old and legendary Kurdish musician living in Iran, plans to give one final concert in Iraqi Kurdistan. After seven months of trying to get a permit and rounding up his ten sons, he sets out for the long and troublesome journey in a derelict bus, denying a recurring vision of his own death at half moon. Halfway the party halts at a small village to pick up female singer Hesho, which will only add to the difficulty of the undertaking, as it is forbidden for Iranian women to sing in public, let alone in the company of men. But Mamo is determined to carry through, if not for the gullible antics of the bus driver.

An opus in three parts, Iraq In Fragments offers a series of intimate, passionately-felt portraits: A fatherless 11-year-old is apprenticed to the domineering owner of a Baghdad garage; Sadr followers in two Shiite cities rally for regional elections while enforcing Islamic law at the point of a gun; a family of Kurdish farmers welcomes the US presence, which has allowed them a measure of freedom previously denied. American director James Longley spent more than two years filming in Iraq to create this stunningly photographed, poetically rendered documentary of the war-torn country as seen through the eyes of Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds.

Arash is an Iranian academic who lives in the West. He returns to Iran to teach in Shiraz, a city far from Tehran where his mother lives. Drawn into a series of domestic and financial dramas, he faces a country that is now alien to him. Following the death of his father and the discovery of what his “respectable family” has become, he is forced to make choices.

In 1908, Sultan Abdul Hamid rules the Turkish Empire, but he is faced with the threat of revolt by the Young Turk party. He allows Hilmi Pasha, the leader of the Young Turks, to return from exile and form the country's first constitutional government. With tensions still growing, chief of police Kadar Pasha assassinates Hassan Bey, the leader of the Old Turk party, and makes it look as if a Young Turk committed the crime, in order to give Abdul an excuse for arresting the Young Turk leaders. Meanwhile, Abdul becomes infatuated with a visiting Austrian singer. When she rejects his advances, she endangers both herself and her fiancé, a Turkish officer who also knows who really shot Hassan Bey.

The inspiring story of three women risking their lives to incite political, activist, and armed uprisings in Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq.

Akif left Germany to join up with the PKK guerrilla fighters. His diary records the doubts, dreams and political discussions that the fighters share as they march through the mountains, and in the meetings where the women criticize male prejudices.

A recently orphaned young Kurdish-French woman travels to Iraqi Kurdistan to find her mother's village, likely destroyed during the Anfal genocide. On her journey she meets two American film students who are traveling to remote villages screening Charlie Chaplin films. They decide to help her search, an undertaking that brings them to the war-weary Mount Qandil, dubbed by the locals the Kurdish Bermuda Triangle, along the Iraqi-Turkish-Iranian borders.

Set during the Iraq-Iran war in the 80s, the film tells of a tragicomic road trip set in Iraq's Kurdistan.

Two Turkish anti-terrorist agents are sent to New York City on a mission to find and bring back the dangerous Islamic leader codenamed "Dajjal", believed to be hiding in there. Working with the FBI and NYPD, the agents orchestrate the arrest of Hadji Gumus, a well-respected Muslim scholar and family man who years before fled to the United States after being released from a Turkish prison, where he served time for murder. This tale love, friendship, peace and prejudices, takes us on a journey seeking to answer the question of whether innocence or guilt even matters to one who lusts for vengeance.

Kenza and Yaël are two young French women who go to Syria to fight alongside the Kurdish forces. There they meet Zara, a Yezidi survivor. Born in different cultures but deeply united, the women-fighters heal their past wounds and discover their present strength, especially the fear they inspire in their opponents. The three young women soon bound together and become true sisters-in-arms.

An intimate portrait, in his own words, of the Indian writer Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses (1988), thirty years after the fatwa uttered by the Iranian Ayatollah Khomeini: his youth in multicultural Bombay, his life in England, his many years of forced hiding, his thoughts on President Trump's United States of America.

As the forces of ISIS and Assad tear through villages and society in Syria and Northern Iraq, a group of brave and idealistic women are taking up arms against them—and winning inspiring victories. Members of “The Free Women’s Party” come from Paris, Turkish Kurdistan, and other parts of the world. Their dream: To create a Democratic Syria, and a society based on gender equality. Guns in hand, these women are carrying on a movement with roots that run 40 years deep in the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) in Turkey. GIRL’S WAR honors the legacy of Sakine Cansiz, co-founder of the PKK who was assassinated in Paris in 2013, and reflects on the sacrifices made by all of the women in the movement, who have endured jail, rape, war, and persecution in their quest to liberate their lives and sisters from male dominance. With scenes of solidarity, strength, and love amongst these brave women soldiers, GIRL'S WAR is a surprising story of Middle Eastern feminism on the front lines.

Damascus, Spring 2011. It's the early stages of the civil war. 25-year-old Nahla is torn between her desire for freedom and the hope of leaving the country thanks to her arranged marriage with Samir, a Syrian expatriate in the USA. When he chooses her younger, more docile sister Myriam, Nahla finds refuge at her neighbor's, the mysterious Ms Jiji.

Sarya lives between three worlds: Having fled from Turkey to Japan, her small family tries to maintain their Kurdish traditions. On the other hand, Sarya, who arrived when she was five, feels at home in Japan. But then, the family loses its refugee-status. Life becomes unpredictable and their days in Japan seem numbered. A haunting story about the balancing act of finding your place in the world.

Back in his hometown after his university studies, Servan is witness to the burning down of his village and a series of other atrocities which eventually lead him to join the Kurdish resistance. In the ranks of the Kurdish liberation movement, he is seriously injured in clashes with the Turkish army. In order not to slow down his comrades and allow them to escape, Servan insists that he be left behind. Against all odds, he survives, enduring several days of acute pain. However, his friends cannot come back to pick him up, the area being surrounded by Turkish soldiers. As the soldiers approach, Servan decides to leave his hide away in spite of his serious injuries. He sets out to find his friends, overcoming countless obstacles in the forest, but nevertheless helped by Kurdish villagers throughout his journey. However, he is hunted down by death squads and village guards.

Aram, a young man from Marseille of Armenian origin, blows up the Turkish ambassador's car in Paris. Gilles, a young cyclist who was passing at that precise moment, is seriously injured. Aram's mother feels guilty and feels the need to visit Gilles at the hospital and beg for his forgiveness, something that Gilles does not understand. Against the advice of his comrades in Beirut, Aram decides to go meet his victim.

A striking political activist and refugee from Paraguay escapes to Paris and falls in love with a rich law student changing their lives forever. The beauty of their love is challenged by a fervent devotion to fighting for a cause.

In Paris' cosmopolitan and colorful 10th arrondissement, Philippe, who's fresh out of prison, crosses paths with Avdal, a Kurd who is trying to track down an Iraqi war criminal. Avdal, who dreams of staying in France, plans to bring his fiancee Siba to Paris. She's due to arrive in the next few days. The two men strike up a friendship and when Avdal dies suddenly and unexpectedly, Philippe finds himself left to organize the funeral arrangements. What should he do with the body? Siba arrives in Paris, and soon learns that Avdal has died. She is taken in by a group of Kurdish men and before long she also meets Philippe - all of whom are quite smitten by her beauty. Meanwhile, Avdal's father Cheto, a devout Muslim, comes to Paris to grieve for his son. He intends to force Siba to return to her homeland, but the young woman has now had a taste of freedom.

"Jiyan" takes place in Halabja about five years after Saddam's infamous chemical attack in 1988. Diyari (Kurdo Galali) has come from his new homeland, America, to put up a badly needed new orphanage. As construction proceeds, he gradually becomes acquainted with the tragic individual stories of the survivors. Prime among these is orphan girl Jiyan (Pirsheng Berzinji), and her lively young cousin Sherko (Choman Hawrami). Although he seems to fit right into life in this impoverished town, Diyari can hardly absorb the catastrophe that hit there, nor can he accept the level of injury that he encounters. When the orphanage is ready, Diyari says his goodbyes, plunging Jiyan back into quiet despair.

Centers on a group of weary Middle Eastern refugees who have made their way to Turkey to apply for European visas.

This is the story of two women on opposite ends of a lifetime, a very young, curious Jiyan and her life-weary but resistant grandmother Berfe, in order to save the person who links them to each other.

An Iranian couple (Shohreh Aghdashloo, Mohsen Marzban) declare themselves political refugees after police detain them on their way to Cuba.

Despite being outnumbered and outgunned, a female Kurdish fighter guides her fellow fighters in the resistance to defend their city, Kobanê, from the deadly threat of ISIS. A real story of war, sacrifice, love and hope that kept the whole world on tenterhooks.

In this adaptation of the critically acclaimed debut novel by Iranian American author Dalia Sofer, a secular Jewish family is caught up in the maelstrom of the 1979 Iranian Revolution.

An Iraqi journalist joins an army of uneasy allies and unforgettable characters in the epic battle to liberate the city of Mosul from the Islamic State.

A portrait of a brutal Pinochet military dictatorship made during a three month visit to Chile in 1985 by David Bradbury. The footage reveals a country torn with civil strife and political unrest; military intimidation of the population; indiscriminate arrests: murder torture and disappearances were facts of Chilean life.