My Sweet Pepper Land

Iraq, France, Germany, United Arab Emirates
Producers: Marc Bordure, Robert Guédiguian
Production Company: Agat Films & Cie

Project Logline:

After the fall of Saddam Hussein, Baran, a Kurdish independence war hero, resolves to accept a position in a godforsaken village at the borders of Iran and Turkey, an illegal trafficking Mecca. There he meets Govend, a beautiful young woman who has come to work as the teacher in the newlyopened school despite her twelve brothers’ hostility to the idea.

Hiner Saleem was born on March 9, 1964, in Aqrah in Iraqi Kurdistan. Hiner Saleem had already started shooting scenes for his first film, Un bout de frontière, when he was interrupted by bombardments and prevented from completing the film. Gillo Pontecorvo, however, decided to present this footage in 1992 at the Venice film festival as an “unfinished work,”which in turn allowed Mr. Saleem to raise the financing he needed for hisnext film, Vive la mariée... et la liberation du Kurdistan (Kebab Connection). He then made a drama with autobiographical underpinnings, Passeurs de rêves (Beyond our Dreams), followed by Vodka Lemon: awarded Best Film (Controcorrente) at the Venice Film Festival 2005. His feature film, Kilomètre zéro, was part of the official selection at the Cannes Film Festival. This was followed in 2007 by the release of Dol ou la vallée des tambours. He directed Michel Piccoli in the film Les Toîts de Paris (Beneath the rooftops of Paris - Best actor prize, Locarno International Film Festival), and in 2011 shot Si tu meurs, je te tue (If you die, I’ll kill you).