Earth Song

Rojîn (Dilan Gwyn) is a dedicated doctor whose constant, intense visits to conflict zones are straining her relationships with those closest to her. Communication problems have become chronic, and her 12-year-old adopted daughter Azad wonders whether her mother even knows her own child. Her marriage, moreover, has increasingly begun to resemble a façade.

One day, Rojîn’s father, who lives in Sweden, unexpectedly arrives in Helsinki. This life-changing visit forces her to confront her past and a hidden family history buried in the conflict between Turkey and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party in the 1980s. Grief and the search for truth send Rojîn and Azad on a long journey that takes them all the way to eastern Anatolia.

Director Erol Mintaş explores middle-class alienation, our relationship with nature and exile in the spirit of masters such as Michelangelo Antonioni and Andrei Tarkovsky, while retaining his own distinctive style and personal approach. Earth Song (Strana axê in Kurdish) succeeds in painting a moving portrait of how universal and intergenerational themes of alienation, identity and belonging can reach all the way into present-day Helsinki.

Omar Fasolah (translated by Herman Tikkanen)

This film was pitched at the Love & Anarchy industry event Finnish Film Affair before it was completed.