Original title: Mandoo
Type : Fiction

Cast:
Rojan Mahamad; Shahab Fazili; Tima Amiri; Avesta Khalid; Mahmoud Gli

Crew:
Directed by: Ebrahim Saeedi
Screenplay: Ebrahim Saeedi & Hossein Abkenar
Director of Photography: Bayram Fazli
Editing: Ebrahim Saeedi
Music: Ali Samadpour
Sound Recorder: Hossein Ghourtchian
Sound Mixer: Hossein Ghourtchian & Ebrahim Saeedi
Special effect: Davoud Rassoulian
Producer: Shakhawan Edris
Company: Kurdistan regional government, Ministry of Culture & Youth – Iraq 
Co-Producer: Ebrahim Saeedi
Executive Producer & Production Manager: Farzin Karim
Year: 2010
Running Time: 90 min
Film Gauge: 35mm; colour 
Original version: Kurdish & Arabic
 

Festival debut:
* Locarno International Film Festival, 2010 ’Filmmakers of the Present’ competition.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

Awards:
* Winner of:  FIPRESCI Prize at International film Festival Yerevan, Armenia, 2011.
* Winner of:  France 24 Award Jury Prize at Beirut International Film Festival 2011.

press kit :

 Synopsis:
« During the events of 1979 Iranian Kurdistan was in turmoil. Political infighting stemming from the Islamic revolution obliged Iranian Kurds to flee their homeland and seek refuge in neighbouring Iraq. Once arrived, the refugees were placed in camps, such as Altash, in which living conditions were deplorable ».
The film opens in Iraq 2004. Sheelan, a young female doctor of Kurdish origin having fled to Sweden with her parents, has taken advantage of the fall of Saddam Hussein to return to Iraq. She wants to find her uncle from whom she has had no news for over 20 years.
Shortly after her arrival Sheelan discovers that her uncle has suffered a stroke and lost the faculty of speech. Her cousin informs her that he wishes to take his father back to Iranian Kurdistan where he’ll be able to live his final days surrounded by memories of his homeland.
Having been unable to convince them to go to Sweden with her, Sheelan decides  to accompany them on their homeward trek.
The road to Iran will be long and full of twists and turns.

Director’s statement:
Many regions of the world are confronted by problems of migration. Economic migrants, asylum-seekers and refugees are often obliged to leave their homelands whilst maintaining a desire to return to the place of their birth.
One people affected by this phenomenon are the Kurds, a people whose motherland stretches across Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran, and whose plight has worsened over the past hundred years.
My film focuses on one small element of forced migration as a means of illustrating a general malaise.

Click  below to watch the trailer: