A champion of the Kurdish cause, Levy told the packed house of global ambassadors and public gathered in the UN General Assembly about Kurdistan’s independence referendum, saying, “They had traded the weapons of war for those of democracy. But we have not taken the measure of their magnificent gesture. We rejected this sharing of values and hope that they were giving us.”
“We have shamefully turned our back on them.”
In Peshmerga, which was released in 2016 with a special screening at the Cannes Film Festival, Levy and his team of cameramen spent months alongside the Kurdish fighters, covering a 1,000-kilometer frontline that separated the Kurdistan Region from ISIS militants to document daily fighting against the militant group.
Speaking to Rudaw TV before the screening, Levy said his film shows to the world the bravery of the Peshmerga and how the West “betrayed” the Kurds when they were in trouble after Baghdad rejected the independence vote and Iraqi forces moved into disputed areas.
The screening at the United Nations was proposed by France and the United Kingdom.
“Kurdistan has become like a sort of big jail under open sky,” he said, but Kurds have friends who brought this film to the United Nations.
The screening was hosted by France’s mission to the United Nations.
