During his travels to the city of Kobani, at the border between Turkey and Syria, Kurdish-Dutch director Reber Dosky meets twenty-year-old reporter Dilovan Kîko. She is determined to keep a radio station amidst the ruins of her city, which no longer has any houses that are intact.
Director Reber Dosky was there with his camera when Kurdish fighters recaptured the border town of Kobani from the IS occupiers. In 2015, he made a short film about it called Sniper of Kobanî, which was presented at last year’s Movies that Matter Festival. During his trip, he meets Dilovan Kîko, a young Kurdish reporter. She sets out to interview survivors, liberators, returning refugees and musicians. Her broadcasts become a central theme in the reconstruction of the city. For Dilovan, it is also a way to process her personal traumas and start building a new life again. In the studio, she records an audio message for the child she hopes to have someday.
Radio Kobani shows the struggle, the healing process of physical and mental wounds, and the blossoming of love. It provides an intimate, shocking and poetic image of traumas and the art of survival.
Text: Annika Wubbolt