Sertschawan
Switzerland 1992. 35mm Blow-up, colour, 90 min.
"Sertschawan" is a kurdish greeting and form of oath. Welcome, "On my eyes"; that is how Omar Chavari would have greeted us had we ever set foot in his bakery. He fled from Halabja with youngest son Shivan in the wrong direction and since then has been used by the media to prove the effectiveness of chemical weapons. A media-worthy photo. Millions of readers and TV-viewers are familiiar with it: a man hiding his head against a cornerstone, cradling a sleeping child in his left arm. Everyone know about Saddam, but none has heard of Omar. We wanted to get to know Omar, Shivan, Beriwan, Chaled, Gulistan and all the others. We met them in the town of Oshnu anmd Sardasht, in the camp at Ziveh, in the villages at the fot of the massif that divides up Kurdistan between Iran, Iraq and Turkey. The town obf Halabja was wiped out. The Kurds live on. Sertschawan.
| Director | Hans Stürm und Beatrice Michel |
| Script | Hans Stürm und Beatrice Michel |
| With | Iranische und irakische Kurden |
| Photography | Hans Stürm |
| Sound | Beatrice Michel |
| Editing | Hans Stürm |
| Music | Kurdische Musik |
| Duration | 90 min. |
| Screening formats | 35mm Blow-up |
| Shooting format | 16mm |
| Versions | deutsch, franz. UT |
| Release | August 1992 |
| Festivals | Solothurn 1993 |
| Contact, World Rights | Beatrice Michel Konradstrasse 81, CH-8005 Zürich +41 44 272 07 06 |
| Production | Filmkollektiv Zürich |
| ISAN | 0000-0000-D514-0000-D |