My fight is against ISIS: Kurdish filmmaker Lisa Calan

Thiruvananthapuram : Kurdish filmmaker Lisa Calan, who is the chief guest at the ongoing 26th International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK), has said that her fight is against the Islamic State (ISIS).

She was interacting with mediapersons here on Tuesday.

Calan, who lives in Turkery, had lost both her legs in an ISIS bomb attack in Turkey on June 5, 2015 while participating in an election rally of the People’s Democratic Party, just two days before the Turkish general elections.

She said that in that blast, five people lost their lives while several others were injured.

Calan said that several filmmakers had come to her support and they started a campaign to raise funds for her treatment abroad titled ‘Let’s be arms and legs to each other’.

She said that after the attack, her will power increased and her strength and resolve to comeback became immense.

The filmmaker said that she had got a job in the Diyarbakir City Hall after the attack but was later fired from the post.

Calan also said that the attack against her was portrayed as an attack against women and her very presence with prosthetics is a clear message to the perpetrators of violence, i.e., the ISIS.

Calan said that she could stand on feet again because of the resolve of the Kurdish people.

The Kurdish people are facing several problems in Turkey and they are forced to fight for their claims and rights, including women’s rights, education, children’s rights etc., she said.

The filmmaker said that there is an interesting dynamism in Kurdish people and that they are tired fighting a war for the past 100 years, adding that the ideology and the nation give them the strength to fight.

When asked whether she expects the formation of an independent Kurdishthan, Calan said that she expects that it will become a reality one day.

The filmmaker also said that most of the Turkish movies are not very political, and do not reflect the minds of the people.

Calan said that she is in the process of making a documentary about the survivors of bomb attacks in Turkey, adding that there are many who had lost their limbs and had been in bed after the bomb attacks orchastrated by the ISIS.

Calan also said that she would try to make an autobiographical movie in which she will depict the trauma she had undergone, including the painful surgeries that she was subjected to in Germany, Australia and Turkey as well as the struggle to come back after the bomb attack had fatally damaged her legs.

The filmmaker said that she is now seeing life from the common man’s perspective, while earlier it was through the lens of the upper class with which she had viewed the society.

Calan also said that she is thankful to the Kerala government and Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan for honouring her with the ‘Spirit of Cinema’ award at the IFFK.

Her movie ‘Language of the Mountains’ was screened at the festival on the opening day (March 18).