SULAIMANI, Kurdistan Region – A Kurdish actor best known for his role in a TV series about the Peshmerga struggle against the former Baathist regime of Iraq passed away on Tuesday at the age of 40.
Pshtiwan Badawi died from a heart attack in his hometown of Sulaimani on Tuesday evening.
A graduate of the Sulaimani Fine Arts, the actor began his career in theater and then moved into the television industry.
He made his fame in the role of a student-turned-Peshmerga in the popular series Gardalul, Storm in Kurdish, which was aired on the Sulaimani-based Kurdsat TV, an entertainment channel.
He is survived by his wife and two children.
“My life-long friend... my light is gone forever,” Hawal Othman, his widow, said with tears in her eyes.
Kurdsat expressed its condolences to the family and fans of the actor.
Othman, also an actor, said that the two have recorded an unseen TV series that is yet to go on air.
Gardalul is a popular Kurdish series with five seasons. Three seasons have been broadcasted, while the last two seasons were put on hold mainly due to a lack funds.
It recounts the New Revolution, a term used in Kurdish language to refer to a new stage of armed struggle by the Kurdish Peshmerga against the Iraqi regime in 1976, about a year after the collapse of the September Revolution that called for Kurdish autonomous rule.
Badawi played Rizgar, a Kurdish university student who is in love with his classmate, Hanar, at a time when the Saddam regime aimed to suppress the Kurdish uprising with an iron fist. Rizgar is working with a Kurdish party in Sulaimani, but then is forced to leave for the mountains to join other Peshmerga fighters who were staging an armed struggle. His lover, Hanar, joins him after a while. Their love story is one that captured the imagination of the audience, and one that recalls life before the Kurdish uprising — the test and trials of love tested through wartime.
Kurdsat shared a clip on Tuesday in his memory. It showed Rizgar meeting with Hanar on a street leading to the University of Sulaimani. Rizgar remains vigilant, fearful that he may have been followed by the regime’s agents.
It also shows him on another encounter at a famous resort in the city, Sarchnar. The two are standing on a bridge. Rizgar is trying to approach her, but Hanar tells him that they are watched.
Rizgar looks around and he sees no one, only to be told by his lover that it is the fish which are watching. Rizgar faces the fish and starts to talk to them.
"You the fish, at least you understand love. Don't you feel shy and make my love feel fearful! Don't you know that we are two mad lovers! Go deep in the water, leave us alone,” he says.
The TV series is based on historical events which document the Kurdish fight for freedom against the repressive regime of Iraq between the years of 1976-1983. The remaining two seasons is to include the later events such as Anfal, the Kurdish genocide, Halabja chemical attack, and through the 1991 Kurdish uprising.
Courtesy of Kurdsat TV
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