Kurdshop- The Sunflower Festival was held in Finland for the first time entitled “Culture, Peace, and Love”, and several Kurdish films were shown.

 The Sunflower Film and Photo Festival is a multilingual film festival based on the theme of peace. The program will feature films about daily life, the current state of culture, nature, and stories of life outside cities of the Middle East.

Kurdish director, Mozhgan Kavousi's short film "Hîwa" was screened as the first film at the festival. The 15-minute film was screened in Kurdish with English subtitles. Hiwa, a Kurdish teacher, talks about the danger of losing the Kurdish language of Kurds who migrated to Kalar and the plains of Iran's Mazandaran province in the last century. This Kurdish short film also talks about the crisis of linguistic identity and aims to prevent the loss of culture and language.

Another Kurdish film, Balora, was screened at the festival. Balora is one of the oldest songs sung by Kurdish women and is now forgotten. This style of singing is sung with a different technique i.e., with the fingers on the throat, and the notes are changed by pulling out and putting the fingers down. The film is directed by Abdulkhaledi.

Rasul Khurram, the founder of the festival, said 20 short films and feature films in Kurdish, Persian, Arabic, Turkish, English, and Swedish will be screened. In addition to the screening, several panels on film criticism will be held.

The festival will be held annually in Finland in cooperation with the Helena Ravatavara Museum of Sociology.

 The festival started on 23.05.2023 and lasted for three days.

Some of the Kurdish films participated in this festival:

 - Take Steps; Director: Mazin Shurbayani and Arian Salih.

- Seven Zagros Symphonies, Director: Parviz Rostami.

 - Soft as Metal, Director: Saywan Saeediyan

- The Fifth Nergiz, Director: Sarkawt Nikdil.

- Mirkut, Director: Sidat Kiran