Before Snowfall

This is a much acclaimed second feature film, a road movie about a travel across Europe, from Norwegian film maker Hisham Zaman, which got a lot of recognition of his multiple prize winning short "Bawke". He won even more prizes with his feature debut, "Winterland". Zaman is originally from Kurdistan, but grew up in Norway after arriving as a teenager, and graduated from the Norwegian Film Academy in Lillehammer in 2004. So he knows the area, Kurdistan, which is the area from which the Kurds Kim from, situated both in Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey in the Middle East.

The film start off with 16 years young Siyar in Iraqi Kurdistan being wrapped in plastic, and sunk into a stinking greasy oiltank truck, before he is smuggled across the Turkish border to find his 18 year old sister, which has run off from her own father-decided wedding. When he finds her, he is going to kill her, to make right the family honor. It's his obligation, as his father has just died, and he is now the man of the house.

A strange situation to us Westerners, but then that's what this kind of films are fire - telling us what goes on around the world. From the poor areas in Iraq Siyar feels obliged to follow the traditions of family honor, which makes him go on a trip to what for him is so completely different world. Traveling through Europe, ending up in Northern Norway. It's important to understand the situations leading up to immigration as well as understanding reactions as well as what's behind someone fleeing as well as how situations are around in poorer regions if the world. The film shows both humanity as well as the opposite in a cold world.

This film was nominated for six Amanda awards at the Norwegian International Film Festival, as well as winning the neat sum of 1.000.000 NOK as best Nordic Film at the 32nd Gothenburg Film Festival, and the winner of Best Photography (Marius Matzow Gulbrandsen) at the TriBeCa Film Festival in 2013. Hisham Zaman is a very talented film maker, and this road movie is up among the most interesting of this kind I've seen. And it's just that good! It's really beautifully filmed, in all ways.

This is the first Zaman-feature I've seen, though I saw the shirt "Bawke" before this, and I'll be sure to check out the rest.

Saw this at the Noordelijk film festival 2014 in Leeuwarden (The Netherlands). Surprising road movie (usually I don't like road movies, but this was different) that worked as a guided tour through very many very different countries and cities. Also surprising was the stubbornness of Siyar. He had just a single purpose in mind, namely to kill his sister, only because the family's honor was at stake. According to his logic and his tribal background rooted in ancient traditions, he "must" do this.

The journey brings him (and us) on a variety of places thereby using a variety of vehicles. That "variety" is perfectly illustrated in the opening scene, showing him wrapped up in plastic and being hidden in an oil tank, to get him smuggled across the Turkish border. But that is just the beginning...

The Q&A after the screening revealed some interesting details: The director explained that he wanted to make a movie like this for a long time. He just needed a compelling reason for traveling over such a distance. The first reason was found in the enormous personal drive that stopped at nothing, just as we saw here demonstrated, coming forth from ancient traditions and tribal morals. Secondly, he met some people from a village like we saw, after which it suddenly appeared to him that an honor killing quest was the perfect carrier for this journey, providing for aforementioned personal drive. By the way: the "villagers" we saw did not live there anymore, but became wealthy and moved to the city. For this film they got appropriate costumes and came back to the village where they were born, to appear in this movie and provide for the necessary local folkloric environment.

In conclusion, very glad to have seen this one. The festival visitors found likewise, and rewarded an above average score of 9.2. As a result, this movie ranked 2nd (out of 64).

Hisham Zaman, the Kurdish Director, could translate one of the issue that Kurdish society and tribal environment which the Kurdish society has into a very artistic images which you can understand and accept through the film. Apart from the issues he present, he could also present the inner side of a Kurdish man who at the end a human who has a feelings and a big heart and can change to the better. Even if that change will cost him a lot. Though his film, Hisham could present the beauty and the ironical status of the society in a very beautiful combination of story and pictures which he could present. As for Hisham Zaman previous films, his short "Bawka" and his feature "Letter to the King" are presenting the creative a level of this successful Kurdish Director.