PUKmedia    08-07-2010    20:28:08

Kurdish-Iranian filmmaker Shawkat Amin Korki's Kick Off

The 80-minute production won the Grand Prize of the event's New Talent Competition and was praised as a “daring work with outstanding direction.”

“This is a deeply humane and emotional film well made under challenging conditions,” the jury wrote about Amin Korki's 2009 film.

Kick Off portrays the joys and sorrows of a group of refugees living in a beat up stadium in Kirkuk, Iraq.

The film has been screened in many international events, receiving numerous awards including the FIPRESCI Prize of the Pusan International Film Festival.

Shawkat Amin Korki was born in 1973 in Iraqi Kurdistan and grew up in Iran. His short films, made between 1997 and 2005, have been screened and awarded at many international festivals.

His first feature-length film Crossing the Dust won him an Asia Pacific Screen Award nomination and the First Feature Competition Special Jury Mention of the 2007 Cinefan - Festival of Asian and Arab Cinema.

TE/HGH has received the top award of the 2010 edition of Taipei Film Festival in the Taiwanese capital.