IWAC – Sadegh Samerei, a well-known Kurdish teacher, writer and filmmaker from Kermanshah (Kermashan) and a graduate of the Kermanshah Youth Cinema Association in 2003; according to the report received by the Kurdistan Human Rights Network, on Tuesday, March 7, 2023, intelligence forces kidnapped Sadegh Samerei from his home, located in Pardis town in Kermanshah. The security officers, while searching the house of this cultural and union activist, confiscated some of his personal belongings. An MA graduate in Literature, Sadegh Samarei has produced many works in the form of poems and stories in the field of Southern Kurdish literature, and most of his works are in the field of Kurdish culture. Also, in recent years, he has made films professionally. “Benmali,” “Shah Maran,” “Genius who Does not Know How to Ride a Horse” and “I Am a Tree Alone on a High Hill” are among his films. In 2018-19, the film “Genius who Does not Know How to Ride a Horse” was selected as one of the six nominees for the best documentary film of the 62nd “Shabdiz” Regional Youth Cinema Festival. The short documentary “Genius who Does not Know How to Ride a Horse” is about the life of Shahrokh Ghiasi, an Iranian painter, sculptor, poet and actor who was born in Kermanshah. Participating in the “Khane Kalangi” project has placed Ghiasi in the list of 100 contemporary artists who have influenced their society, in the list of Western art foundations. This artist fell from a horse and died while acting in his last movie “The Fifth Season,” directed by Rafi Pitts and written by Bahram Beyzai, in 1996-97. Sadegh Samerei’s film, which documents the story as witnessed by Ghiasi’s friends and draws on archival footage and images, is in a way a summoning of the past. Sadegh Samrehai also participated in the 33rd Tehran Short Film Festival with the film “Twenty-One and Twenty-One.” In an interview at the same festival, he considered experimental cinema as avant-garde cinema and stated that in his works he has tried to draw on the climate of his city of origin and not be intimidated by the capital. However, he has emphasized that expressing the problematic of the film is more important to him than being too sensitive about localism. To this date, 3/9/2023, there is no update on the reason of Sadegh Samerei’s arrest and his whereabouts.
