Notes on Kurdistan

It has hardly been the safest place to shoot films in recent years and this third feature, set against the backdrop of Saddam's fall, had almost as much trouble as the travelling musicians who are its central characters.

They are led by a veteran Kurdish icon called Mamo (Ishmail Ghaffari) who has been given permission to perform a concert in Iraqi Kurdistan. Taking his cock-fighting old friend Kako (Allah Morad Rashtiani) along as the bus driver, he picks up his musical sons on the way.

The problem is that to get through all the police and army roadblocks without the proper papers necessitates audacity and plentiful bribes, particularly since he has hidden his young female singer on the bus because the religion of the land decrees that women cannot sing in front of men in public.

Progressing through a majestic if ravaged landscape where the bus has to dodge an American unit who, the old man says, will shoot at anything that moves, it is clear that even the power of music may not be enough to allow the group to reach their destination.

The film, equipped with a sense of humour as well as a certain kind of Middle Eastern magic realism, has a central theme that emphasises the fate of a whole people without a country to call their own. To combat this, says Ghobadi, they seek refuge in music and humour. Half Moon is a fine example of just how they do it.

Half Moon