The 12th edition of the Berlin Kurdish Film Festival kicked off on Thursday evening with the screening of Neighbours by Mano Khalil.

The director of the film, Mano Khalil, answered questions from the audience after the screening. In a Kurdish village in Syria and on the border with Turkey, little Sero attends school for the first time. A new teacher had arrived with the goal of making strapping pan-Arabic comrades out of the Kurdish children. He uses a rod to forbid the Kurdish language, orders the veneration of Assad and his regime while preaching hate to the “Zionist enemy”- the Jews. With a fine sense of humour and satire, the film depicts a childhood experience which manages to find light moments amongst the dictatorship and dark drama. 

A large photograph of Jina Amini was also carried in the festival to protest the murder of the young Kurdish woman by the Iranian state and in solidarity with protests in Rojhilat and Iran.

The Berlin Kurdish Film Festival will last until 19 October.