A Song for Two Women
October 2026 - September 2027
DİYARBAKIR, ŞIRNAK, VAN
A Song for Two Women is a musical documentary project centred on the life stories of Feyruşah, a Kurdish singer living in Cizre, and her mother, Hediye. While Feyruşah uses her songs to give voice to the living, Hediye chooses to accompany those mourning the dead through the laments she sings in cemeteries.
Connected through the shared language of music, the two women strive to forge their own paths in the face of social pressure, poverty and loneliness. Unfolding through songs, silences and memories drawn from everyday life, the project seeks to explore the relationship between mother and daughter in a world where life and death are deeply intertwined.
At the same time, the documentary sets out to explore how Kurdish oral culture is passed down from generation to generation through women's voices, and how grief finds expression through music. Through the stories of these two women, the project aims to engage with the collective memory of Cizre, bringing into focus the ways in which personal experience, cultural tradition and the expression of loss intersect.
Yılmaz Özdil
Born in Hakkâri in 1979, Yılmaz Özdil graduated from the Faculty of Communication at Ankara University. Between 2003 and 2006, he worked as a research assistant in the Department of Radio, Television and Cinema at the Faculty of Fine Arts of Van Yüzüncü Yıl University. In 2007, he completed his MA in Film Studies at Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University. In 2013, he defended his PhD dissertation, entitled The Visual Construction of Kurdish Identities in Cinema, at Paris 3 Sorbonne Nouvelle University.
He has directed several documentaries and worked as an assistant director on numerous films shot in Türkiye, Iraq and France. He has also served as a jury member and consultant at various film festivals. He is currently an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Fine Arts of Van Yüzüncü Yıl University.
His first short fiction film, Barê Giran (Heavy Burden, 2019), was selected for more than 200 film festivals and received 32 awards, including one at an Oscar-qualifying festival. His second short fiction film, AFOROZ, completed in 2022 with the support of CultureCIVIC, has been screened at more than 80 international film festivals to date, receiving 18 awards.
His debut feature fiction film project, Günah Keçisi (Gîskê Maliberê), was selected for the Directors Lab programme at the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and received production support from the Red Sea Fund of the Red Sea Film Foundation. The film is being developed as a co-production between Türkiye, France, Germany and Saudi Arabia, with principal photography scheduled to take place in Hakkâri and Van in May–June 2028.
This page is published on 19 October 2026.
