Award winning Kurdish-British filmmaker based in London
MMT received Real Screen Award at the Middle East Now Film Festival
We are thrilled to share that our feature documentary project "My Mothers’ Tale" (MMT) was showcased as a work in progress at the Close Up Showcase during the Middle East Now Film Festival in Florence, Italy. The event featured a lineup of incredible projects, and we were honoured to receive the Real Screen Award from the jury. Huge thanks to Close Up, the festival team, and the jury members for their trust, motivation, and support!
Our feature documentary project, "My Mothers' Tale," has been awarded one of two IDA-supported Artist Awards at the Close-Up Pitching Forum in Tbilisi, Georgia. We are thrilled to be selected alongside a fellow filmmaker, Bircan Birol.
We are grateful for the support provided by Close Up and IDA to independent filmmakers.
With fellow filmmaker Bircan Birol, the director of the project "My Honour," who also received the IDA Artist Award.
With our project's mentor Bruni BurresKaty McGahan and Mizgin Arslan shared a strong passion for documentary filmmaking and inspiring more women to find their voice in this field. The New Unity which is home to dissenders and has been for 300 years, believed in their project and funded it.
In May 2023, they began workshops with 12 women from diverse backgrounds, ages, and skill levels. Over 14 sessions, they covered radical documentary history, storytelling, genres, and film language, learning a great deal from one another and bearing witness to each other's unique journeys. The participants of the Hyenas in Petticoats Women Documentary Filmmaking Workshop created some beautiful short documentaries, which we will showcase at a screening at the Newington Green Meeting House (London) on December 1st at 7 pm.
You can book your free ticket online by visiting https://www.ngmeeting.house/events/hyenas-in-petticoats-showcase-screening.
Our hybrid documentary film project My Mothers’ Tale was selected for Close Up Program 2023-2024
“We are thrilled to announce the selection of 13 projects from Southwest Asia and North Africa for the upcoming 2023-2024 Close Up program, out of a total of 121 applications received from across the region!”
Click to read about all projects selected to the program.
(Published in October 2023)
Our feature documentary film project My Mothers’ Tale was selected as one of the Sundance Institute Documentary Fund Grantees 2023!
“This year’s grant recipients span a wide spectrum of topics, unearthing stories from diverse corners of the globe. The selected documentaries delve into subjects that include Indigenous People and Native Americans, the journey of transgender youth, the exploration of family lineage secrets, narratives of individuals with disabilities, and even an untitled feature centered around Uvalde, Texas. Among the 23 films, six are currently in development, 14 are undergoing production, and three are in the post-production phase.” For more info click
(Published in August 2023)
The short film Arin, directed by Mizgin Arslan, was recently shown as part of the "Family on the Move" program during Refugee Week Greece in Athens from June 19th to 25th, 2023.
Women's Radical Film Workshop by Katy McGahan and Mizgin M. Arslan started
A 12-week documentary course for women led by filmmakers Katy McGahan and Mizgin Arslan has started in London. The course will be exploring how documentary film has been a platform for the creative expression of radical ideas and aesthetics. Alongside watching and discussing rarely-screened archival and contemporary examples of radical filmmaking, participants will be given the opportunity to develop and produce their own film projects.
Published: May 2023
We are happy to announce that our hybrid feature documentary project My Mothers’ Tale was awarded CNC award by Meetings on the Bridge in Istanbul Film Festival.
“The personal family story of Mizgin Müjde Arslan shows us the different generations of mothers. Their dilemmas set against the historical and political backdrop in parts of Europe and beyond, which are even nowadays unsettling for families. Impressive on the level of the personal search but also fascinating in terms of the journey within colourful cultures surrounding. ”
Arin, Angel and Battle with language directed and produced by Mizgin M. Arslan were screened as a part of “Hidden Voices: Making of Hackney Today” that took place in Unitarian Church in Hackney, London. Photo was captured during
Q&A session following the screening with event curator and moderator Feride Kumbasar.
10.06.2022
Finding my voice
I was a little girl who was born in a small Kurdish village who wanted to be an author, where no girls could ever go to school after primary school. My mother and grandmother were never given the chance to study. Somehow, (It is a beautiful word when there is a long story underneath but you want to cut it short for now) I became the first girl in my family to continue to study after primary school but my Kurdish name was changed and I was given a brand new Turkish name. A name, that I never did get used to.
I was a calm kid, who was practically voiceless; regardless of whether I would attempt to talk, I was unable to speak. Until I discovered storytelling through moving images and was sure that if I had known filmmaking before; that would be my childhood dream.
I went to the cinema for the first time at the age of 17 and later found inspiration in filmmakers like Abbas Kiarostami, Yılmaz Güney, Agnes Varda, Tarkovski, Bergman, and Angelopoulos. Their films not only motivated and encouraged me, but also helped me discover many stories within myself.
After working as a journalist for six years, I shot my first film in 2006 (The Last Game) and since then I have been making fiction and non-fiction films about women, immigrants, the elderly, cultural, gender, minority issues and family stories with political background and historical context of the time.
I Flew, You Stayed, directed by Mizgin M. Arslan, was awarded "the Best Documentary of the Year" at the Turkish Film Critics Association Awards in Istanbul.