Nosema

This region of southeastern Turkey was once bustling with life but is now almost entirely in ruins. The Diril family were forced to leave amidst conflict between the Army and the PKK several times since the 1990s. They kept returning, trying to pick up their old lives. But in 2020 this came to an abrupt end.

Three months before the couple Hürmüz and Şimuni Diril vanished without a trace, director Etna Özbek followed them for her short film Nosema. Hürmüz and Şimuni were among the last Chaldean Catholics in the desolate Turkish mountains. For generations their family lived from herding goats and keeping bees. In this film, they visit places from their past that are now completely destroyed.

Özbek pays close attention to daily life in and around the new house that Hürmüz has built himself. But from brief interviews about the violence in the region it becomes clear that such family moments cannot be taken for granted. This idea is powerfully underlined in the final minutes of the film, when the couple’s son Remzi explains the dramatic events that have taken place.