''Gulîstan, Land of Roses'' (French title: ''Gulîstan, terre de roses'') is a 2016 feature-length documentary film about women guerillas in a

Kurdistan Workers' Party The Kurdistan Workers' Party, or the PKK, isDespite the PKK's 12th Congress announcing plans for total organisational dissolution, the PKK has not yet been dissolved de facto or de jure. a Kurds, Kurdish militant political organization and armed ...

(PKK) Free Women's Unit, in combat against the

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant The Islamic State (IS), also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and Daesh, is a transnational Salafi jihadist organization and unrecognized quasi-state. IS occupied signi ...

(ISIL), directed by the Kurdish Montreal filmmaker Zaynê Akyol. Shot in

Iraqi Kurdistan Iraqi Kurdistan or Southern Kurdistan () refers to the Kurds, Kurdish-populated part of northern Iraq. It is considered one of the four parts of Greater Kurdistan in West Asia, which also includes parts of southeastern Turkey (Northern Kurdist ...

, the film is co-produced by

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

's Périphéria Productions,

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

's MitosFilm and the

National Film Board of Canada The National Film Board of Canada (NFB; ) is a Canadian public film and digital media producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary films, animation, web documentaries, and altern ...

. The film was conceived and named for a woman, Gulîstan, who had been a role model for the director in her adopted home in Montreal, until she left to fight with the PKK. Akyol went to Iraq in 2010 in an unsuccessful effort to find her and make a film about her. Unable to locate Gulîstan, she found women who knew her, and the focus of the documentary shifted to telling Gulîstan's story through their memories of her. However, when she returned to Iraq to film in 2014, some of the women had died, while others were in combat. That made the focus of the film shift yet again to documenting the experiences of women like Gulîstan.

Release and reception

The film had its World Premiere during

Visions du Réel Vision, Visions, or The Vision may refer to: Perception Optical perception * Visual perception, the sense of sight * Visual system, the physical mechanism of eyesight * Computer vision, a field dealing with how computers can be made to gain und ...

festival in 2016, and had its Canadian premiere at the 2016

Hot Docs The Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival is the largest documentary festival in North America. The event takes place annually in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The 27th edition of the festival took place online throughout May and June ...

festival.

Awards

In August 2016, it won the Doc Alliance Selection Award, presented by a collective of seven European documentary film festivals during

Locarno Festival The Locarno International Film Festival is a major international film festival, held annually in Locarno, Switzerland. Founded in 1946, the festival screens films in various competitive and non-competitive sections, including feature-length narr ...

in Switzerland. In November 2016, the filmmaker received the award for Best New Talent from Quebec/Canada at the

Rencontres internationales du documentaire de Montréal The Montreal International Documentary Festival () is a Canadian documentary film festival, staged annually in Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the ...

. In January 2017, the film was nominated at the

5th Canadian Screen Awards The 5th annual Canadian Screen Awards were held on March 12, 2017, to honour achievements in Canadian film, television, and digital media production in 2016. Nominations were announced on January 17, 2017. Awards in many of the technical categor ...

for Best Feature Length Documentary and Best Editing in a Documentary ( Mathieu Bouchard-Malo.

Étienne Roussy Étienne Roussy is a Canadian cinematographer.Frédéric Bouchard"Le directeur photo Étienne Roussy, allers-retours entre la fiction et le documentaire" ''Lien Multimédia'', June 9, 2017. He is most noted for his work on the film ''Gulîstan, Lan ...

won the

Prix Iris Prix was an American power pop band formed in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1975 by Tommy Hoehn and Jon Tiven. The group ended up primarily as a studio project. Its recordings were produced by Tiven along with former Big Star member Chris Bell, who ...

for Best Cinematography in a Documentary at the

19th Quebec Cinema Awards The 19th Quebec Cinema Awards ceremony was held on 4 June 2017, hosted by actors Guylaine Tremblay and Édith Cochrane, to recognize talent and achievement in the Cinema of Quebec. Formerly known as the Jutra Awards, the Prix Iris name was annou ...

in 2017.Yan Lauzon
"Xavier Dolan amorce sa récolte"

TVA Nouvelles TVA Nouvelles is the news division of TVA, a French language television network in Canada. Programs produced by the division include nightly local and national newscasts branded as ''TVA Nouvelles'', as well as the news magazine program ''JE' ...

, June 1, 2017. The film was also nominated for Best Documentary Film and Best Editing in a Documentary (Bouchard-Malo)."Duel en vue entre Juste la fin du monde et Two Lovers and a Bear au Gala du cinéma québécois"

Ici Radio-Canada #REDIRECT ICI {{redirect category shell, {{R from other capitalisation{{R from ambiguous page ...

, April 5, 2017.

References

External links

* * (NFB) * {{DEFAULTSORT:Gulîstan, Land of Roses 2016 films Canadian documentary films Documentary films about women in war Films shot in Iraq German documentary films National Film Board of Canada documentaries Quebec films 2016 documentary films 2010s Canadian films 2010s German films Iraqi Kurdistan Kurdistan Workers' Party