Shirin and Nikan

The documentary Shirin and Nikan begins for me with a central question: How does colonial violence shape the most intimate relationships between people? As a Kurdish filmmaker raised under the Iranian regime—where our language was banned, our identity suppressed, and our bodies controlled—I know the kind of invisibility that such violence leaves behind.

In this film, I wanted to reveal how political power structures infiltrate even the smallest gestures: a touch, a conversation, a silence. The Kurdish language has been criminalized for decades—so what does it mean when a love between two women becomes vulnerable precisely at this fault line, when one woman’s mother tongue is also the other’s language of oppression?

My challenge was to translate this invisible violence into images within a love story. I searched for moments that do not illustrate, but allow the audience to feel how history and power can stand between two bodies.

Shirin and Nikan portrays two women who, despite language prohibitions, trauma, and social pressure, attempt to find closeness. It is also my own question to cinema: How can intimacy be shown when colonial structures constantly permeate it? The film seeks to make these power relations visible—while preserving the tenderness that persists in spite of them.