ŞAYÊ MARA

ŞAYÊ MARA presents a threefold opening before its title first appears on screen. The film commences with the written text of a poem that conjures the creation of the world. It is followed by the spoken story of Şahmaran. This myth about the Kurdish goddess of wisdom also conveys a genealogy: When Şahmaran dies, her wisdom passes on to her daughters. Last but not least, dancing women and sparks are seen rising from a fire. Three distinct narratives about beginning, each set against a black background. We encounter the very process of coming into being, while simultaneously learning that the end—including death—is not the end of all possibility.

ŞAYÊ MARA was shot in Jinwar. This village in northern Syria was founded by and for women in 2018. It is one of the projects to emerge in the wake of the Rojava Revolution. It stands for a history of resistance, healing, self-governance, and self-preservation. The film neither explains Jinwar nor presents the village in an explanatory manner (apart from an inscription). Anyone who researches the village would learn about its central medicinal herb garden and its ecological and feminist principles. ŞAYÊ MARA embraces precisely these principles and translates them into cinematic forms: Tranquil shots show the gathering and drying of herbs and flowers, and collective processes of bargaining relating to the story of Şahmaran. A wonderfully seamless blend of documentary and fiction, of history, myth, and radical immediacy. The soundtrack blends a precise listening to each and every gesture with the plaintive call of peacocks and the constantly audible present of (military) aircraft – kept at bay off-screen.

With ŞAYÊ MARA and as in her previous films (again in collaboration with cinematographer Raquel Fernández Núñez), the artist Helin Çelik explores cinema’s potential to renegotiate reality. (Nanna Heidenreich)

Translation: Eve Heller