In JIYAN I am dealing with death and destruction, the flip side of which is life itself. For a Kurd
life equates survival in the face of endless odds. It necessitates an ongoing struggle against the
evils within the human heart. The humans in question are the immediate neighbors and
occupiers whose treatment of the 40 odd million Kurds is anything but humane. The infamous
gassing of the Kurds in 1988 left an estimated 5000 dead and over 9000 maimed or deformed,
all in a matter of a few minutes. One couldn't harm that many flies in such a short time, but yet
Saddam did it and lived to brag about it at his private banquets.

JIYAN is loosely based on testimonial accounts of the survivors, some of whom had lost their
family members to the chemical attack. The mention of my plans to take their stories to the
world brought tears to their eyes. A handful of the survivors took part in the film, playing
themselves such as the women who had lost all her family and her sight to the chemicals. I
found her begging in the market place, and the stuttering man who plays the father proposing
for a girl's hand for his son. The next day he showed me a photograph of his real and only son
who had died during the attack. I was speechless.

The Kurds are a colorful people, full of life despite the tragedies befalling them. Being
indigenous to their region, they possess a rich culture, which they have managed to preserve for
time immemorial. They thrive on poetry, music and dance, and with that comes romance. There
are two love stories running parallel, one involving Jiyan herself, and there is even a wedding.
JIYAN is a popular female name in Kurdistan. It means life. Therefore Jiyan, the ten‐year old
orphan, is a representative of life, or rather life itself, though bruised as half of her face was
burned by acid during the chemical attack.

My ultimate goal for JIYAN is to be a window to the world through which one can see a glimpse of
the Kurds, of their daily life, their culture, their folklore and, most importantly, their human rights
dilemma.

Jano Rosebiani

Synopsis

On 16 March 1988, five days before one of the most important Kurdish feast days (Newruz), Iraqi planes bombed the Kurdish town of Halabja with mustard gas, nerve gas and cyanide. Within a few minutes, 5000 men, women and children died through suffocation or burning. Despite the scale of the slaughter, international reactions were subdued and no severe sanctions or reprisals were taken against the Iraqi government. Jiyan is set against the background of these events. Five years after the attack, the Kurdish American Diyari returns to his homeland to set up an orphanage in Halabja. He slowly gets to know the people of the town, such as the man who has sat playing the flute day and night on a roof since he lost his wife and eight children. But most attention is focused on ten-year old orphan Jiyan, who along with her protective 12-year old cousin Sherco is the sole survivors in their family. Jiyan (a popular girl's name in Kurdistan meaning `life') only recovers slowly from the traumatic event.

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