Oxir be Rubar, oxir be Ser­vano!” (Rest in peace, Rubar, rest in peace you, the com­bat­ant) Kur­dish film direc­tor Ersin Çelik wrote on his Face­book page on Novem­ber 3 2019. Below the mes­sage appear pho­tos of a charis­mat­ic young man with a smile on his lips but seri­ous eyes. One of the pho­tos shows him in the garb of a PKK com­bat­ant while anoth­er was done dur­ing the film­ing of Ji bo Azadiye – The End­ing will be spec­tac­u­lar, a work of fic­tion released in 2019 that relates the resis­tance in the Sur neigh­bor­hood of Amed (Diyarbakir) in 2015–2016 under attacks by the Turk­ish army attempt­ing to exter­mi­nate activists who had declared the rule of self-government.


Français | English

rubar shervanA com­bat­ant turned actor for the role of a gueril­la leader in Sur, before falling as a mar­tyr on Octo­ber 25 2019 next to four oth­er com­bat­ants in con­fronta­tions with the Turk­ish army, Rubar Sher­van’s sto­ry intrigues. We asked Ersin Çelik to tell us more about him.

« Rubar Sher­van (Cihan Sev­er) is from Van, one of the cold­est towns in North­ern Kur­dis­tan (Bakur, a part of Kur­dis­tan occu­pied by Turkey). He left this icy region for one of the warmest regions of Kur­dis­tan, led by a pas­sion, a feel­ing and an objec­tive. He came to Kobanê in 2014–2015 in order to fight against ISIS, some­thing he nev­er stopped doing in Roja­va and in North­ern Syr­ia up until our meet­ing. I know he was wound­ed sev­er­al times.

We met in Kobanê in 2017 when prepa­ra­tions for the film were already under­way. We were look­ing for ama­teur actors because we want­ed to cap­ture authen­tic emo­tions with peo­ple as close as pos­si­ble both to what had hap­pened in Sur and to the sub­jec­tiv­i­ty of the young peo­ple who fought there. We were thus con­vinced that only peo­ple who had lived sim­i­lar events could inter­pret this sto­ry. Thus, the actor inter­pret­ing the char­ac­ter had to be as close to him as pos­si­ble in real life.

This was no small mat­ter. There were very intense con­fronta­tions going on, the war against ISIS was still rag­ing in Raqqa. We were a group of film mak­ers, jour­nal­ists and indi­vid­u­als ded­i­cat­ed to the project and we were active­ly work­ing on writ­ing the script, scout­ing for actors and re-cre­at­ing the archi­tec­ture of Sur in Kobanê. Sur is a town built with black stone char­ac­ter­is­tic of its region, with walled-in nar­row alleys where­as more than 80% of Kobanê had been destroyed.

rubar shervan

We were prepar­ing a film, while already liv­ing one: we had planned to use a group of SDF com­bat­ants in Shed­da­di but they were called up to the front at the begin­ning of the oper­a­tion in Deir ez Zor since pri­or­i­ties were else­where. Kahra­man Amed was sup­posed to play a role in the film but he fell a mar­tyr in Raqqa a few days before film­ing began. Film mak­er and jour­nal­ist Mehmet Aksoy also fell a mar­tyr in Raqqa dur­ing an assault by ISIS.

Dur­ing the ini­tial prepara­to­ry phase we had nev­er dis­trib­uted the roles because we were busy orga­niz­ing and train­ing for the crew. This last­ed for three months and dealt with the dif­fer­ent aspects of cin­e­ma includ­ing the­o­ry, crit­i­cism, and dra­ma class­es. At the end of this train­ing, we start­ed work on the sce­nario and rehearsals for some of the key scenes. This is when the cast­ing became more pre­cise. As this was a film done by a col­lec­tive, it was impor­tant that the two-per­son teams in the sce­nario be com­ple­me­nary and, as I said, it was impor­tant that some of the char­ac­ters’ char­ac­ter­is­tics meld with the actor’s personalities.

The first time I saw Rubar, I told myself he was the one, and my opin­ion did not change dur­ing the three-month train­ing peri­od: he could play of the main roles, that of Çiyager, the leader of the resis­tance dur­ing 100 days in Sur-Amed from Decem­ber 2015 to March 2016. Rubar’s heart was a light as a feath­er, he was extreme­ly mod­est and always opti­mistic even when deal­ing with dif­fi­cul­ties. He smiled all the time and all eyes turned toward hm when he entered a room. His atti­tude was impres­sive. In short, he had all the char­tac­ter­is­tics of a rev­o­lu­tion­ary leader. He was exact­ly the way Çiyager was to be interpreted.

At first, he was­n’t too keen about being in the film. He con­sid­ered this was­n’t his role, that he had no the­ater or film expe­ri­ence. So he had to trust him­self, and us.

But it is admit­ted among polit­i­cal­ly-aware Kurds that par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Sur resis­tance is an hon­or, just as is the case for resis­tance in Kobanê and Shen­gal. Liv­ing or dying isn’t what mat­ters, what mat­ters is hon­or, resis­tance, free­dom and the inti­mate con­vic­tion that rev­o­lu­tion is not a dream. In short, one must be con­vinced that a new life is pos­si­ble. And like many oth­ers, Rubar had that con­vic­tion. For every rev­o­lu­tion­ary, life takes on an artis­tic and poet­ic dimen­sion. Only poet­ry and art can tell the tale of the jour­ney from a region where snow lies more than 2 meters deep to one where sum­mers are scorch­ing hot. Only rev­o­lu­tion­ar­ies can take on the title role in a film while fight­ing against ISIS, the most orga­nized evil on earth. This is how Cihan became Rubar in Kobanê and played the role of Çiyager in the film Ji bo Azadiye.

Of course all these ingre­di­ents could not suf­fice because a film is a long and com­pli­cat­ed tech­ni­cal process and few peo­ple man­age to see the film behind the sce­nario, along with the cam­era, the light, the crew, the audi­ence. Ama­teur actors have a hard time get­ting accus­tomed to all these aspects, espe­cial­ly when you need to make sev­er­al takes. We man­aged to fin­ish the movie nonethe­less and it is tru­ly a film, even though it rests on real events. But real­i­ty is every­where in it. Two of the actors (Kor­san Ser­van and Haki) for exam­ple fought in Sur and we made sure that they played their own roles. It’s an impor­tant detail in the his­to­ry of cin­e­ma. Rubar Sher­van for instance won­dered if he would be able to inter­pret Çiyager.

rubar shervanOur film deals with a process that is still ongo­ing and fresh in every­one’s mind. Ruber felt this was not an ordi­nary movie and that he he would marked for life by this role.

My role as direc­tor was to main­tain every­one’s moti­va­tion and to pre­pare the emo­tion­al cli­mate before and after the takes. This was not suf­fi­cient because, at times, actors had to repeat the slight­est ges­ture. But every­one had entered into the project telling them­selves they had to give it their best. We kept say­ing “we can do bet­ter.” With this state of mind we man­aged to over­come the lack of moti­va­tion that could appear after sev­er­al takes. We for­bade our­selves the thought that we did not need to be as demand­ing in these con­di­tions, with actors and a crew lack­ing in suf­fi­cient expe­ri­ence for such a project. We are ama­teurs but we attempt­ed to think and to act as pro­fes­sion­als. Rubar trust­ed us as an actor, he took our request, crit­i­cisms and advice under con­sid­er­a­tion. He took part at a heavy cost.

Prepa­ra­tions last­ed for three months and so did film­ing. Rubar had scenes right up to the end, includ­ing the hard­est ones. There was no extrav­a­gance, no exag­ger­a­tion in this film, but the telling of a true, authen­tic sto­ry. Our actor com­rads thus went on a diet to lose weight, they remained dirty and with uncut hair, and Rubar did all this with­out any qualms. He left the set in March 2018.

We had last seen each oth­er dur­ing the sum­mer of 2019 when I showed him a first ver­sion of the film with tem­po­rary edit­ing, after which we lost con­tact until news arrived of his death on Novem­ber 2. From what I gath­ered from the media, he died a mar­tyr under bomb­ing dur­ing a con­fronta­tion with the Turk­ish army in Haf­tanin. He lived in right­eous­ness. He loved life to the point of sac­ri­fic­ing it. Our duty is to keep his mem­o­ry alive. »

Loez et Mah, novem­bre 2019


Translation by Renée Lucie Bourges
iknowiknowiknowblog.wordpress.com
Vous pouvez utiliser, partager les articles et les traductions de Kedistan en précisant la source et en ajoutant un lien afin de respecter le travail des auteur(e)s et traductrices/teurs. Merci.
Kedistan’ın tüm yayınlarını, yazar ve çevirmenlerin emeğine saygı göstererek, kaynak ve link vererek paylaşabilirisiniz. Teşekkürler.
Ji kerema xwere dema hun nivîsên Kedistanê parve dikin, ji bo rêzgirtina maf û keda nivîskar û wergêr, lînk û navê malperê wek çavkanî diyar bikin. Spas.
You may use and share Kedistan’s articles and translations, specifying the source and adding a link in order to respect the writer(s) and translator(s) work. Thank you.
Por respeto hacia la labor de las autoras y traductoras, puedes utilizar y compartir los artículos y las traducciones de Kedistan citando la fuente y añadiendo el enlace. Gracias.
Loez
Pho­to-jour­nal­iste indépendant
Loez s’in­téresse depuis plusieurs années aux con­séquences des États-nations sur le peu­ple kurde, et aux luttes de celui-ci.