Creating identity through places in the films of kurd filmmakers

Cinema is the arena for the realistic representation of the nowhere lands - suspended between reality and ultra-reality, whilst upholding and sustaining heterotopia – is simultaneously governed by the discourse and logic of power. Kurdish cinema may be viewed as a telling example of this point of view.
The main objective of this research has been a content-wise study of this cinema to figure out the strategies employed by the Kurd filmmakers to represent their identity through places.
The research methodology of this research was grounded theory in qualitative studies. For this purpose from movies produced in Kurdish cinema (from the very beginning to 2016), 15 films were selected based on the open coding method. The common concepts of the selected movies were re-read through axial coding and selective coding and based on theories on the concepts of identity and representation.
 This article refers to the convictions of various thinkers in the field of ‘location’ studies as well as an emphasis on an ‘identity’ centered approach - to present a meaningful model for a more facile understanding of ‘location’. The divisions of the discourses on location - in a three-part model (space, location, and matrix) –follow such an undertaking.
 Studying different aspects of location (violence location, space locations, other locations, home, and country) are all further discourses in the field of identity which are further accented with the location. In this regard, the Kurdish filmmakers’ share is considerable - by presenting the periphery and “other locations”. In [this] cinema, ‘other locations’ are presented and delivered in a variety of forms.
The findings of this research show that Kurdish cinema is a wave of regional cinema that through the emphasis on language and identity in mostly neorealist productions has represented Kurds and their problems as the main theme of their stories. The productions of this cinema try to establish a nation, bestow identity on these people, and remove the previous prejudices. These movies, through paying attention to themes like war, genocide, poverty, displacement and migration, marginalization and exclusion and mainly by stories related to children and women, produce signs like border, camp, disability, other places, mountain, snow, mine, which all have significations related to the cultural identity. The movie’s stress on the geographical location of Kurdistan signifies a form of nationalism and the construction of “self” in opposition to the “other”.