Before Snowfall

The film opens with an escape. Nermin, who is eighteen, runs away from her own wedding. This happens in a village in Iraqi Kurdistan. What the family calls its honour is held to be damaged. The task of finding her and restoring that reputation falls to her brother Siyar. Siyar is young and has no experience of the world. When he sets out he does not know the weight of what he has taken on. Early in the journey he reaches Istanbul. There he meets a young girl named Elvin. Elvin becomes his travelling companion. The two of them move from east to west. They cross Europe and the road runs as far as Norway. Along the way Siyar begins to see his own needs. He works out that he wants respect and wants to be loved. He is caught between the errand and the wish. The film holds that tension in a quiet register. Abdullah Taher and Bahar Ozen appear in the hundred and five minute film, an Iraqi, Norwegian and German co-production Hisham Zaman finished in 2013.