ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Dutch-Kurdish filmmaker Philip Rashid has completed shooting his latest work. Jamal is a 15-minute short that blends magical realism with Kurdish history and is inspired by his late father, renowned historian Jamal Ahmad Rachid.
The film follows a young Kurdish man growing up in Amsterdam’s Bijlmermeer district who uncovers his ancient roots, guided by a legendary Sumerian figure. While fictional, Rachid said the story is a tribute to his father, whose research sought to reconstruct Kurdistan’s fragmented history and trace Kurdish origins to the Sumerians.
“My father always told me, instead of hosting TV shows, tell the story of Kurdistan,” Rachid told Rudaw in an interview. “This film is the seed he planted in me - to connect worlds and tell our story in an imaginative way.”
Rachid, a former television presenter and actor in the long-running Dutch soap Good Times, Bad Times, said he first drafted the script for Jamal 15 years ago but struggled to get approval to make it in the Netherlands. He left to work abroad, eventually settling in Dubai as a director, and returned to the project only last year when producer Peggy Gemerts picked it up.
Although set in the Netherlands and primarily in Dutch, much of the dialogue is in Kurdish and reconstructed Sumerian, the result of extensive research with actors and academics. “The story of the Kurdish diaspora is rarely told like this,” Rachid said.
The director described Jamal as both personal and historical, and a way to honor his father who passed away several years ago. “He always wanted me to know our history, to tell the world we exist and have the right to speak for ourselves,” he said.
Rachid hopes the short will serve as a proof-of-concept for a feature-length production.
While his work has an international outlook, Rachid said he hopes to one day make a film in Kurdistan. “Our stories must be told visually,” he said. “That’s how we can bring Kurdistan’s voice to the world.”
Rachid was born in Bulgaria and raised in Amsterdam. A self-taught creative, he draws deeply on his family’s Kurdish heritage.
After earning a Master’s in screenwriting for Jamal & The Soul Warrior, he directed Zol’a (2012), shot in Kurdistan and screened at festivals worldwide, and SHE, a multi-award-winning documentary. Winner of the Samsung Short Film Competition at the 2014 Dubai International Film Festival, Rachid now lives in Dubai, where he continues to create films and teach.