Ebrahim Saeedi

A documentary short.

Rojin is a young Kurdish woman about to take the university entrance exam. Rojin's unhappily married older sister Shilan decides to help her pass at any cost, hoping to give her a more emancipated life. Thus, the sisters inevitably become entangled in a huge network of corruption that connects all parts of society.

It's 2004, and the news that Saddam Hussein has died sends shock waves through the Middle East. Shaho is the son of an elderly man of Iranian Kurdish heritage; the old man's health is failing him after suffering a stroke, and he's convinced he doesn't have long to live. Shaho, his father, and their family have been living in an Iraqi refugee camp for a while, but with the passing of Saddam, Shaho believes the time is right for them to return to Iran, where father can spend his last days in the land of his birth. However, as Shaho is making plans for the trip back to Iran, his cousin Sheelan visits the family for the first time in twenty years; her parents fled to Sweden when she was a child, where she's now a physician, and she wants her dying uncle to join her there where he'll be safe and well cared for.

During the 30 years of the Baath ruling under Sadam in Iraq thousands of Iraqi Kurds and Shiites were either killed or disappeared. Around 182,000 people lost their lives when 4500 villages and townships were destroyed in Kirkuk, Soleimanieh, Dahouk and Erbil regions with the aim to exterminate the Kurds and to arabize Kurdistan. Having found one of the mass graves after 24 years in the southern deserts of Iraq, became the basis of a movie describing the living conditions of these villages inhabited by mostly mothers, daughters, wives or sisters of those victims.

As Lake Ûrmîye dries into salt plains, the once-fertile village of Dizaj Dol faces ecological collapse. Amid dying crops and vanished livelihoods, Kurdish and Azari neighbours struggle to save their land, turning to faith and shared resilience against nature’s relentless devastation.

In the village of "Dizaj Dol" near Iran's Lake Urmia, water scarcity has dried up wells and gardens. Farmers Kak Mohammad and Mashhadi Askar, who come from different backgrounds, are facing the environmental challenges in their own way. Kak Mohammad's well still has some water, but as the sea dries up, he can no longer feed his garden. Drought and salt storms bring disasters that lead to recession, unemployment and disease in the region. Villagers turn to prayer, each following his faith: Mashhadi Asgar and the Azaris hold a ceremony near the dried lake, while Kak Mohammad and the Kurds gather in mosques. Despite setbacks, Kak Mohammad persists with wedding plans for his son, but concerns about the future and the state of the lake persist.

A documentary short.

It's 2004, and the news that Saddam Hussein has died sends shock waves through the Middle East. Shaho is the son of an elderly man of Iranian Kurdish heritage; the old man's health is failing him after suffering a stroke, and he's convinced he doesn't have long to live. Shaho, his father, and their family have been living in an Iraqi refugee camp for a while, but with the passing of Saddam, Shaho believes the time is right for them to return to Iran, where father can spend his last days in the land of his birth. However, as Shaho is making plans for the trip back to Iran, his cousin Sheelan visits the family for the first time in twenty years; her parents fled to Sweden when she was a child, where she's now a physician, and she wants her dying uncle to join her there where he'll be safe and well cared for.

It's 2004, and the news that Saddam Hussein has died sends shock waves through the Middle East. Shaho is the son of an elderly man of Iranian Kurdish heritage; the old man's health is failing him after suffering a stroke, and he's convinced he doesn't have long to live. Shaho, his father, and their family have been living in an Iraqi refugee camp for a while, but with the passing of Saddam, Shaho believes the time is right for them to return to Iran, where father can spend his last days in the land of his birth. However, as Shaho is making plans for the trip back to Iran, his cousin Sheelan visits the family for the first time in twenty years; her parents fled to Sweden when she was a child, where she's now a physician, and she wants her dying uncle to join her there where he'll be safe and well cared for.

During the 30 years of the Baath ruling under Sadam in Iraq thousands of Iraqi Kurds and Shiites were either killed or disappeared. Around 182,000 people lost their lives when 4500 villages and townships were destroyed in Kirkuk, Soleimanieh, Dahouk and Erbil regions with the aim to exterminate the Kurds and to arabize Kurdistan. Having found one of the mass graves after 24 years in the southern deserts of Iraq, became the basis of a movie describing the living conditions of these villages inhabited by mostly mothers, daughters, wives or sisters of those victims.

During the 30 years of the Baath ruling under Sadam in Iraq thousands of Iraqi Kurds and Shiites were either killed or disappeared. Around 182,000 people lost their lives when 4500 villages and townships were destroyed in Kirkuk, Soleimanieh, Dahouk and Erbil regions with the aim to exterminate the Kurds and to arabize Kurdistan. Having found one of the mass graves after 24 years in the southern deserts of Iraq, became the basis of a movie describing the living conditions of these villages inhabited by mostly mothers, daughters, wives or sisters of those victims.

As Lake Ûrmîye dries into salt plains, the once-fertile village of Dizaj Dol faces ecological collapse. Amid dying crops and vanished livelihoods, Kurdish and Azari neighbours struggle to save their land, turning to faith and shared resilience against nature’s relentless devastation.

As Lake Ûrmîye dries into salt plains, the once-fertile village of Dizaj Dol faces ecological collapse. Amid dying crops and vanished livelihoods, Kurdish and Azari neighbours struggle to save their land, turning to faith and shared resilience against nature’s relentless devastation.

As Lake Ûrmîye dries into salt plains, the once-fertile village of Dizaj Dol faces ecological collapse. Amid dying crops and vanished livelihoods, Kurdish and Azari neighbours struggle to save their land, turning to faith and shared resilience against nature’s relentless devastation.

In the village of "Dizaj Dol" near Iran's Lake Urmia, water scarcity has dried up wells and gardens. Farmers Kak Mohammad and Mashhadi Askar, who come from different backgrounds, are facing the environmental challenges in their own way. Kak Mohammad's well still has some water, but as the sea dries up, he can no longer feed his garden. Drought and salt storms bring disasters that lead to recession, unemployment and disease in the region. Villagers turn to prayer, each following his faith: Mashhadi Asgar and the Azaris hold a ceremony near the dried lake, while Kak Mohammad and the Kurds gather in mosques. Despite setbacks, Kak Mohammad persists with wedding plans for his son, but concerns about the future and the state of the lake persist.