Berbú (Sevinaz Evdike) Syria

Berbú (The Wedding Parade)
Sevinaz Evdike
Syria. 2022. 70 min

Berbu is a moving film about Kurdish families in the Rojava war. It centers on Gule’s upcoming wedding, which symbolizes hope and resistance in the midst of conflict. The family’s difficult decisions reflect the challenges of Kurdish communities in war-torn regions. Despite daily adversity, they hold on to happiness, love and traditions. The direction and camerawork capture life in a war-torn town as well as strong emotions and harsh realities. “Berbu” impresses with a thoughtful narrative about love, tradition, sacrifice and resilience.

Sevinaz Evdike was born 1992 in Serekaniye, Rojava. She studied film directing at the Cigerxwin Academy in Diyarbakir, Turkey. She served as co-director of the Rojava Film Commune. She co-founded the Rojava Film Festival.

Evdike directed the short film Mal (Home, 2018) in Raqqa shortly after the Syrian Democratic Forces liberated the city from Islamic State. She served as producer of Shero Hinde’s Love in the Face of Genocide (2020) and as executive producer on Antonia Kilian’s The Other Side of the River (2021). She was production assistant on Alba Sotorra’s The Return: Life after ISIS (2021). The Wedding Parade is her first feature film.

Evdike now works as coordinator of Kezi, a collective of Kurdish and international women filmmakers, based in Rojava. They educate filmmakers and screen films all over Rojava, based on the ideology of democratic confederalism, women’s liberation and protecting ecology.

Evdike promotes the screening of Kurdish films around the rest of the world, and she lectures on filmmaking, screenwriting, and production. In 2020 she gave the “Freedom Lecture” on the Rojava Film Commune at the Rotterdam Film Festival. She was an official artist with Rojava Film Commune at Documenta 15 in Kassel, Germany.