Zara

In an expanse of stony Turkish landscape, two women roam around looking for the village of Zara. The Kurdish Mirka is returning to her birthplace after 12 years, accompanied by her ignorant German-speaking blonde girlfriend. On the way, reality, memory and fantasy increasingly become entangled as they are confronted with people and nightmares from the past.
Zara - literally 'birth of the road' - portrays Mirka’s quest to find the right way back to a wild past she hasn't come to terms with, and, she seems to hope, to a bearable present. Her Western companion wants to mirror her own traumas in those of Mirka and that's why she came with her.
This début by Ayten Mutlu Saray is a poetic meditation about the deep grievances of exile and the history of the Kurdish community that was forced to give up its own language and roots. Not only does the landscape seem to be filled with metaphors, the director shows important rituals and myths that underline the bond between the Kurds and their homeland and express his historic convictions. The gap between East and West turns out to be irreconcilable. Mirka’s companion dies, and burying her Western girlfriend turns out to be the first step on the way to the catharsis Mirka was hoping for. This serves to break through part of the isolation.