Also, festival reveals Tsai Ming Liang will be honoured as Asian Filmmaker of the Year.

The 15th Pusan International Film Festival (PIFF) will debut a Special Program on Kurdish Cinema: The Unconquered Spirit with eight films portraying Kurdish identity and humanity in the midst of wars, poverty, exile and oppression.

Bahman Ghobadi, who was arrested and subsequently released last year in Iran following the Cannes premiere of his film No One Knows About Persian Cats, will screen Half Moon in PIFF’s showcase. The film is about a musical family living a nomadic life on the borderlands between Turkey, Iraq, and Iran.

The Kurdish cinema showcase also includes Miraz Bezar’s Min-Dit: The Children Of Diyarbakir, a story about two young Kurdish children forced to live on the street after their parents have been murdered, and Yilmaz Arlsan’s Fratricide, a film about friendship and a tragic spiral between a young Kurdish man and a Kurdish refugee boy in Germany.

Last year’s New Currents award-winner Shawkat Amin Korki (Kick Off) shows humanitarian love overcoming political and historical tragedy in his film Crossing the Dust (2006), which depicts the fateful encounter of an Arab boy and a Kurdish resistance soldier.

Two documentaries show the actual reality of Kurds in All My Mothers, about women who lost their sons and husbands in the resistance, and David the Tolhidan about a French man who volunteered for the Kurdish resistance guerilla militia.

PIFF will hold a seminar with Kurdish directors along with the screening of their films.

The festival also announced Tsai Ming Liang (Vive L’Amour, Face) for its Asian Filmmaker of the Year Award. The award is presented to Asian filmmakers who undertake outstanding activities to improve and develop the Asian film industry and culture. Previous recipients include Yash Chopra, Andy Lau and the late Edward Yang.

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