How far would you go to restore your family's honour? As the oldest son in his household, Siyar confronts that question with a vengeance after his older sister, Nermin, flees an arranged marriage, and he must atone for the slight.
Before Snowfall
Synopsis
How far would you go to restore your family's honour? As the oldest son in his household, Siyar confronts that question with a vengeance after his older sister, Nermin, flees an arranged marriage, and he must atone for the slight. Siyar follows her from their small village in Iraqi Kurdistan to Turkey. Meeting Evin, a young Kurdish girl dressed as a boy and working in the Istanbul streets, leads to the first cracks in Siyar's resolve. When Nermin escapes into Europe, Siyar follows her with Evin. He continues a search that will forever change his notions of loyalty, dignity, honour and love. With stunning imagery and gripping storytelling, Before Snowfall is a thought-provoking look at killing in the name of honour, at the intricate web of connections that sustain the brutal tradition, and the unbelievable lengths to which some will go to see it through.
Before Snowfall will be shown in Kurdish with German subtitles in Basel and Zurich.
In the context of a huge body of work on domestic violence across the world, Human Rights Watch has documented killings in the name of honour in countries including India, Syria, Jordan and Turkey. Before Snowfall is also about displacement and disrupted lives, the fate of so many Kurds originating from Turkey, Iraqi Kurdistan, Iran, and Syria. Human Rights Watch has documented egregious human rights abuses against Kurds, including the Anfal campaign of Saddam Hussein's government against Iraqi Kurds in 1988, and enforced disappearances and killings of Kurds by government forces in Turkey during the 1990s.