Zeynel Doğan

Zeynel Doğan — Biography

Kurdish film director and actor Zeynel Doğan, who comes from Turkey, is best known for Babamın Sesi (Voice of My Father, 2012), a film drawn from his own family's story. He co-directed it with Orhan Eskiköy and played Mehmet himself. Working out of Diyarbakır, he has supported local young people's filmmaking through teaching and coordinating roles.

Born in Elbistan, Doğan studied at Anadolu University and graduated in journalism in 2002. From 2003 to 2005 he worked at the Diyarbakır local channel Gün TV, and in 2006 he became coordinator of the Diyarbakır Cinema Workshop. Between 2010 and 2016 he taught cinema at the Aram Tigran City Conservatory run by the Diyarbakır Metropolitan Municipality; in 2016, when a trustee was appointed to the municipality, he said he would not work with the trustee. With Özgür Doğan and Orhan Eskiköy he founded Perişan Film, and he coordinates the Diyarbakır Media Center, which trains local youth in contemporary video practice.

Babamın Sesi grew out of the audio recordings his family, who could not read or write, sent to his father in place of letters while the father worked for years in Saudi Arabia; it tells the story of a Kurdish-Alevi family affected by the Maraş massacre. The film had its world premiere at the Rotterdam Film Festival and in 2012 won Best Screenplay at the Istanbul Film Festival and Best Film at the Adana Golden Boll festival. He is also credited with the 2008 film On the Way to School.