Zirek

Acting

Zirek

Born

1957-07-10 (69)

Place of birth

Hakkari, Türkiye

Known for

Acting

Credits

22 titles

Known for

Jeune Femme poster
5.9

Broke, with nothing but her cat to her name and doors closing in her face, Paula is back in Paris after a long absence. As she meets different people along the way, there is one thing she knows for sure: she's determined to make a new start and she'll do it with style and panache.

Jeune Femme

2017

The Man Who Cried poster
6.1

A young refugee travels from Russia to America in search of her lost father and falls in love with a gypsy horseman.

The Man Who Cried

2000

Sisters in Arms poster
7.0

Kenza and Yaël are two young French women who go to Syria to fight alongside the Kurdish forces. There they meet Zara, a Yezidi survivor. Born in different cultures but deeply united, the women-fighters heal their past wounds and discover their present strength, especially the fear they inspire in their opponents. The three young women soon bound together and become true sisters-in-arms.

Sisters in Arms

2019

Skirt Day poster
7.1

A teacher, driven to exasperation from insults and insubordination, takes her class hostage.

Skirt Day

2008

Eden Is West poster
6.2

Desperate to break free from the poverty of his homeland, Elias boards a ramshackle people-smuggling trawler to France. But when the boat is raided by police, Elias leaps into the ocean, eventually finding himself washed up on a Mediterranean beach resort called Eden. So begins Elias odyssesy across Western Europe to Paris, where wondrous promise, helpful new friends and perilous dangers await him every step of the way.

Eden Is West

2009

Latin Babylon poster
NR

Three Turkish workers traverse Iraq in a jeep heading to an American military base construction only to find themselves confronting adolescent Iraqi soldiers in a checkpoint.

Latin Babylon

2017

Film credits

2010s · 11 titles

Jeune Femme poster
5.9

Broke, with nothing but her cat to her name and doors closing in her face, Paula is back in Paris after a long absence. As she meets different people along the way, there is one thing she knows for sure: she's determined to make a new start and she'll do it with style and panache.

Jeune Femme

2017

Sisters in Arms poster
7.0

Kenza and Yaël are two young French women who go to Syria to fight alongside the Kurdish forces. There they meet Zara, a Yezidi survivor. Born in different cultures but deeply united, the women-fighters heal their past wounds and discover their present strength, especially the fear they inspire in their opponents. The three young women soon bound together and become true sisters-in-arms.

Sisters in Arms

2019

Latin Babylon poster
NR

Three Turkish workers traverse Iraq in a jeep heading to an American military base construction only to find themselves confronting adolescent Iraqi soldiers in a checkpoint.

Latin Babylon

2017

Girls of the Sun poster
7.0

Bahar, the commanding officer of the Daughters of the Sun, a battalion made up entirely of Kurdish female soldiers, is on the cusp of liberating their town, which has been overrun by ISIS extremists.

Girls of the Sun

2018

The Legend of the Ugly King poster
7.0

Director Hüseyin Tabak explores the legacy of Yilmaz Güney — political dissident, convicted murderer, and visionary Kurdish filmmaker — who directed the 1982 Palme d'Or–winning Yol from inside prison and died in exile just two years later.

The Legend of the Ugly King

2017

House Without Roof poster
7.1

Alan, Jan and Liya, born in Kurdistan, raised in Stuttgart, want to grant their deceased mother her final wish: to be buried beside her husband, who died in the war, in their home village in Kurdistan. The clan objects, but the three set out anyway. A risky journey to a homeland wracked by strife.

House Without Roof

2017

Ballad of Exiles: Yılmaz Güney poster
NR

Having spent ten years of his life in prisons, Güney escaped from Isparta Semi-Open Prison in 1981 and went to Paris, where he would spend the last years of his life. The recognition Güney received as a filmmaker in France brought him the Palme D'or at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival for his film "The Road." The documentary builds a bridge between France and Turkey through Yılmaz Güney, tracing his footsteps in Paris, the filming process of "The Wall," the lives he influenced through his political struggle and cinema, and the stories of those who were forced to leave their country after September 12th, who came to France as immigrants, his friends and colleagues, and the life stories of exiled people whose paths somehow intersected with his during this journey.

Ballad of Exiles: Yılmaz Güney

2016

Chateau poster
5.5

In the vibrant African neighborhood of Château d'Eau in Paris, Charles is the smoothest of all the hustlers. His job: to fill the districts numerous hair salons with customers. But when the competition is tough and everybody’s trying hard to be number one, dirty tricks are just around the corner.

Chateau

2017

Before Snowfall poster
6.3

Before Snowfall starts with a dramatic escape: Eighteen year-old Nermin runs away from her wedding in a village in Iraqi Kurdistan. Being the elder of the family, her younger brother Siyar becomes responsible for finding her and restoring the family reputation. The mission proves a dangerous one for the inexperienced Siyar. First stop is Istanbul, where he meets Elvin, a young girl who becomes his travel companion. On the way from east to west, through Europe and all the way to Norway, Siyar comes to realize his own need for respect, and for love.

Before Snowfall

2013

Hotel Paradise poster
NR

At the haven for the abandoned, a 50-year-old part-time dad at the end of the line meets a 35-year-old woman who returns after 15 years with a secret.

Hotel Paradise

2012

Pari(s) d'exil poster
NR

Zîrek is a Kurd from Turkey. Stateless in Paris for more than a quarter of a century, he promised his father that he would send his grandson to his homeland, where he himself can no longer go. This journey will plunge him back into his past, starting at the airport where he himself arrived in France twenty-five years earlier. He will retrace his life's journey from his first steps as a refugee, filled with the certainty of a imminent return, to his situation as an exile. The distance from his loved ones, the loss of illusions and all hope. As he travels towards his hometown of Hakkâri, the son gradually rediscovers his father from afar. Their initially difficult relationship will evolve over the course of telephone calls into a certain complicity.

Pari(s) d'exil

2013

2000s · 4 titles

1990s · 2 titles

Behind the camera