Director: Umur Hozatlı

Cast: Serdar Kavak, Vedat Perçin, Öznur Kula, Musa Yıldırım, Mehmet Ünal, Aysun Akgün, Ömer Şahin, Tayfur Aydın, Miran Gültekin, İbrahim Turgay, Baran Demir, Cemal Taş

North Kurdistan (Turkey) / 2010 / 91mins / Kurdish (Kurmanji) and Turkish with English subtitles / 18

Set in Istanbul in mid 90s, a young Kurdish man Deniz Şahin is kidnapped by group of plain cloth gunmen in an early hours of the morning. He is taken to a secret interrogation centre of the JİTEM (Gendarmerie Intelligence and Fight against Terrorism), a unit under the structure of the Turkish military which has never been officially accepted by the Turkish state. He is badly tortured by the JITEM members to give information about his political affiliations. Deniz’s father Mürşit has a heart attack when he hears that his son has been kidnapped. At the hospital Deniz’s sister Selvi meets a man called Kemal, unaware of his true role (he is in fact head of the JITEM unit that kidnapped her brother. Kemal’s father is also under treatment and shares the same room with Deniz’s father. Kemal, a torturer and brutal killer in the interrogation centre seems to be a warm and tender person in his daily life and he falls in love with Selvi. Selvi needs a person to rely on in these difficult days. This film is based on personal stories of victims and provides information on JITEM’s activities. It is a true story of counter-guerilla unit which is still committing horrific crimes against the Kurdish people.