Award Rationale

HOME MADE receives the Best Kurdish Film award for transforming a modest school event into a humane story about childhood, identity, and belonging. Through Gabriel, an eleven-year-old Assyrian boy, the film offers a sensitive portrait of 1980s Mardin and its cultural diversity while keeping the child’s experience at the centre of the narrative.

The screenplay follows a clear and cohesive progression, moving from the preparations for Domestic Goods Week towards an unexpected outcome. Its themes emerge through actions and everyday details rather than direct explanation. The direction approaches the children’s world with restraint and sensitivity, while the camera draws the audience closer to their experience and uses considered framing to express the relationship between the characters and the institutional space surrounding them.

The coherence between writing, direction, cinematography, editing, and performance gives this local story a wider human resonance. Through its formal unity and culturally grounded perspective, HOME MADE offers a mature example of a Kurdish short film from Türkiye.

Synopsis

In 1980s Mardin, Türkiye, Gabriel is an eleven-year-old Assyrian boy studying within an authoritarian educational system.

For Domestic Goods Week, Gabriel and his friends carefully prepare homemade food and drinks to bring to school. Their preparations, however, lead to unexpected consequences within a strict environment where even minor mistakes can be met with severe punishment.