Quest for Honor

A searing and necessary documentary about the still-prevalent practice of honor killing in the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq.  The film centers on cases taken up by the Women's Media and Education Center in Iraq. This intrepid group of women investigate and confront this issue, remaining profoundly hopeful that change in centuries-old attitudes is possible.  Contains some graphic footage. 

3/13 7:00 (BMAC) & 3/21 1:00 (Latchis)
**Filmmaker present

Quest for Honor 2008  

Mary Ann Smothers Bruni  

60 min     Kurdistan/USA     Doc

Download Complete Press Kit PDF  (Click here)

SB PRODUCTIONS
PRESENTS
Quest For Honor
A DOCUMENTARY FILM BY MARY ANN SMOTHERS BRUNI
1 HOUR AND 5 MINUTES – IN KURDISH LANGUAGE WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES
WORLD PREMIERE 2009 SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL

QUEST FOR HONOR
A FILM BY MARY ANN SMOTHERS BRUNI
SYNOPSIS
The alarming rise in “honor killing,” the heinous act of men killing daughters, sisters, and
wives who threaten “family honor,” endangers tens of thousands of women in Iraq, Turkey,
Jordan and adjoining countries. Global communication through satellite television,
Internet, and cell phones has raised the expectations of young Middle Eastern women,
who now are not content to marry a much older relative their father might chooses and live
a life of servitude. While young women respond to new ideas from cyber pals in Los
Angeles or episodes of popular Western sit-coms, their fathers and brothers demand strict
tribal justice for their acts. Particularly in rural areas women have been killed simply for
having unfamiliar phone numbers on their cell phones or speaking to men who are not
relatives.
The Women’s Media Center of Suleymaniyah, Iraq, has joined forces with Iraq’s Kurdish
Regional Government (KRG) to end the heinous practice of “honor killing” of women.
First time filmmaker Mary Ann Smothers Bruni – who is an author and photographer –
documents these horrible acts and the people who are fighting to end these senseless
killings that take place in Kurdistan in the new feature film QUEST FOR HONOR.
A call to the Women’s Media Center reveals that a woman’s body has been found in a field
near Ranya, a border town in the “Wild East” where Iraq, Iran, and Turkey meet. RUNAK
Faraj, the center’s leader, and her colleague Kalthum Murad Ibrahim are requested to join
local Ranya Police Chief Abudullah at the crime scene. Abdullah’s cell phone shows a
most devastating image of a young woman clad in blue jeans and grabbing her hair in the
agony of death. The woman is named Nesrin, a young widow dispossessed of her
children who has no apparent family close by. Her mother is dead and her father living
abroad. No one cares for her, and no one knows who murdered her.
“Why doesn’t the government fund shelters for homeless woman rather than spend
resources investigating their inevitable murders,” Kalthum asks Ranya’s mayor.
It is answers to these questions that QUEST FOR HONOR attempts to find as the camera
follows Faraj and her colleagues as they investigate and report murder and violent cases
like this one and others.
In Suleymaniyah, a woman is shot at the Asuda Safe House. “The shooting at Asuda
posses a threat to all women,” proclaims Runak Rauf, director of the Women Media
Center. Journalists Hemen Kaikai and Lawen Asad investigate and talk to the victim and
her assailant in an eye-opening interview. Jasmin (a pseudonym), now in a shelter
provided by the KRG’s newly formed Agency to Prevent Violence Against Women tells the
interviewers she was shot three times while preparing for evening prayer. Captain
Nariman reveals that Jasmin remains in great danger even though the Agency has taken
three men into custody.

Rewan, the Women’s Media Center newspaper, vigorously pursues these cases in an
effort to get the stories out, educate the public, and change tradition. Kurdish main
media follows their lead.
QUEST FOR HONOR exposes these killings and violent acts, as the police Chief Abdullah
states his frustration on camera that “no one is convicted.” Interviews with victims of
attempted honor killings, their perpetrators, the police, government officials, and
community leaders coupled with the filmed investigations of these killings provide insight
into a practice that must be stopped. QUEST FOR HONOR is produced and directed by
Mary Ann Smothers Bruni for SB Productions and will make its world premiere at the 2009
Sundance Film Festival in January.

QUEST FOR HONOR
A FILM BY MARY ANN SMOTHERS BRUNI
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
The guys of Iraq have filled our television screens—the squawky politicians, the mad
bombers, the rare intelligent voice. But where are the women? Iraq is a civilized and
educated society whose roots go into ancient time. Women have been a part of the action
there since long ago.
When the Smothers Bruni Foundation’s (SBF) secretary Sissy Farenthold and I met with
our advisor Elizabeth “BJ” Warnock Fernea, (professor emerita Middle Eastern Studies,
University of Texas, producer of 6 films and several books on Middle Eastern women), we
pondered that question. All three of us have spent extensive time in Iraq. BJ’s book Guest
of the Sheikh, an entertaining ethnography on life with the wives of a Shia sheikh, has
been in constant print for over forty years. Sissy has traveled to Iraq on missions from
women’s groups. And I had discovered Iraq by simply walking up a mountain in April 1991
and joining the masses estimated at about two million people, who were fleeing the gun
ships of Saddam, as the Kurdish uprising fell. The spunk and the intelligence of the
women struck me then and continued to grow as I moved into Iraqi Kurdistan for three
years to prepare a book and exhibition entitled Journey through Kurdistan.
We decided that putting a face on the women of the Middle East, particularly those of Iraq,
should be the Number One priority with SB Foundation. We further decided that video and
film best served this purpose. With that in mind, we formed and funded SB Productions,
LLC., wholly owned by the Smothers Bruni Foundation.
The failing situation in Baghdad dictated that we could only work freely in the north at that
time. Thus the Zhinan (Kurdish for women) project was born. Our mission was to explore
and document the situation of the women in northern Iraq. This would include Christians,
Yezidis and other groups, as well as Kurds, who inhabited the region under the Kurdistan
Regional Government of Iraq.
Zhinan was a mission of exploration and discovery. The three stories that we eventually
filmed came about slowly. We did not craft them. We discovered them. Along with the
exploration and discovery, we documented and we filmed. We have over 500 hours of
footage documenting life in Iraqi Kurdistan, as well as interviews with women judges,
politicians, physicians, and poets.
We went to Iraqi Kurdistan to record the success stories of women rebuilding Iraq. Once
there, we were even more taken by the narrative of women struggling with the region’s
worst nightmare---the horror of “honor killing” and the related practices of trading and
selling women. The problem of honor killing lies deep in the roots of Middle Eastern
culture. Its obliteration requires the hard work of brave and dedicated local activists and
politicians.

Western media is now covering this practice and depicts it in simplistic terms. It is urgent
that the West begin to understand this custom so that we can support the women, lawmen,
and governments who are fighting this plague and not victimize them further by being
seduced into believing negative stereotypes of their culture.
While QUEST FOR HONOR could not have been filmed in some countries, the Kurdistan
Regional Government (KRG) was not only open but was extremely helpful to our filming.
The KRG itself is fighting the problem of “honor killing” with laws by creating better safe
houses and establishing a special Agency to Prevent Violence Against Women. That
agency gave us exclusive access to follow the high profile case of Jasmin (pseudonym),
the woman who was shot at Asuda Safe House, whose story is featured in Quest for
Honor.
We had great collaboration and assistance from the locals. Hirau Ibrahim Ahmad -
filmmaker, video producer, activist and wife of the Jalal Talabani, the first Kurdish
president of Iraq-- provided cars and guards for our crew, which made it possible to work in
the Rania area, sometimes troubled by PKK-Turkish fighting and Iran’s shelling of
dissident camps and refugees there.
Ako agha, a prominent leader in Rania, offered the crew his home and hospitality for part
of the shoot. Women from The Women’s Media Center opened their homes and intimate
moments of their lives, as well as their work, to us.
Kurds were on both sides of our cameras—busy at work as cameramen, assistant
directors, story consultants, production managers, advisors and translators. We let them
tell their own story and reveal themselves without explanations or interruptions from
outsiders or experts.
Our participants show how investigations of honor killings are handled and the lawmen’s,
activists' and villagers' diverse attitudes towards these murders. They allow us to
experience safe houses, markets, and daily work both in the countryside and cities. The
strange beauty, that is Rania, opens up to us in walks and drives through that city’s streets
and the adjacent fields and mountains.
I have been visiting Iraqi Kurdistan for 18 years creating Journey Through Kurdistan, a
book and exhibition; Stations for Leila, a photographic meditation on the murder of a good
friend in Duhok, Iraq; and Zagros Prayers, created for the Mountain Institute to exhibit at a
United Nations conference in Bhutan.
My experiences and contacts have enabled us to produce a nuanced version of women in
Iraqi Kurdistan and their experiences in creating a safe world for women in this new
century. I am committed to fleshing out our depiction of these women with two more films
based on the amazing roles they have assumed in the recovery from Saddam’s brutal
genocidal attempt on the Kurds and the rebuilding of Iraqi Kurdistan and the surprising
career choices they are making in the new Iraq.

I hope that QUEST FOR HONOR will bring the men and women of Iraqi Kurdistan to life in
their full complexity for an international audience and educate all people about the vast
process of cultural change taking place in Iraqi Kurdistan and similar places. I hope that
the film will make Western human rights activists aware of the work being done by their
counterparts in Kurdistan on honor killings and other abuses against women. And
ultimately, I hope that QUEST FOR HONOR will help to begin the dialogue and inspire
individuals to get involved in stopping the violence against women in their own hometowns
and around the world.

QUEST FOR HONOR
A FILM BY MARY ANN SMOTHERS BRUNI
GLOSSARY, BACKGROUND AND HISTORY
HONOR KILLINGS
“Honor killing” is the practice of men killing women who have brought “dishonor” to the
family name, primarily through extramarital sexual activity. It is not exclusively a twentyfirst
century Kurdish, Middle Easter, or Moslem problem. Under Roman law, a father could
kill his daughter or wife with impunity for reasons of honor. “Honor killings” were frequent
enough in 17th Century Spain for a genre known as “honor killing dramas" that depicted
the practice to become popular. The best known of these are by Spain’s foremost
dramatist Pedro Calderon de la Barca and include "El medico de su honra, The Physician
of his Honor," in which a doctor bleeds his wife to death because of suspicion of dishonor,
even though he knows she has been faithful. Calderon was a priest, and some scholars
connected “honor killing” of that day to the Counterreformation and the Roman Catholic
Church, just as some writers today attribute it to Islam.
Most likely “honor killing” is a pre-Christian, pre-Islamic practice based on the
consideration of women as property whose ability, and perhaps duty to produce offspring
must be regulated by men of the family. Dowry deaths and crimes of passion have the
same roots.
"Honor killings" came to the Americas with the Spanish and were legal until the latter part
of the twentieth century in various American countries. Similar traditions still persist in
some of the southwestern states of the USA.
VOCABULARY
Honor Killing: The practice of men killing their wives, daughters, or sisters who have
brought dishonor to the family, sometimes by simply having an unknown cell phone
number or speaking with a man not of the family.
Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG): The freely elected parliament and officials who
rule the Kurdish region of Iraq as defined by the Iraqi constitution.
Agency to Prevent Violence Against Women: An agency of the Ministry of Interior of the
Kurdistan Regional Government that shelters, protects, and advises women in danger of
honor killing or other violence.
Safe House: A place where women in danger of honor killing can be sheltered.
Zhin ba zhin: Trading one woman for another, for example trading a young girl for a wife
for her brother. The younger girls will not be taken to their groom’s home until they reach
adolescence, but they still are married.
Trades for Blood: Applies to women who are exchanged in a peace settlement between
families, for example when a member of one family has killed a member of the other.

BACKGROUND
The alarming rise in honor killing, the heinous act of men killing daughters, sisters, and
wives who threaten “family honor,” endangers tens of thousands of women in Iraq, Turkey,
Jordan and adjoining countries. Global communication through satellite television,
Internet, and cell phones has raised the expectations of young Middle Eastern women,
who now are not content to marry a much older relative their father might chooses and live
a life of servitude. While young women respond to new ideas from cyber pals in Los
Angeles or episodes of popular Western sit-coms, their fathers and brothers demand strict
tribal justice for their acts. In rural areas women have been killed simply for having
unfamiliar phone numbers on their cell phones or speaking to men who are not relatives.
The United Nations and international human rights organizations like Amnesty
International repeatedly cite the urgency to eradicate the practice of “honor killing” in yearly
and regional reports. Kurdish media and on-the-ground activists point to climbing statistics
in their towns and regions of honor killings and the increasing numbers of women
committing suicide to escape their fates.
While international human rights organizations work to combat the practice of honor
killings, it is the women activists, such as those portrayed in Quest for Honor who wake up
to the every day realities of these realities and boldly face them head on. Cooperating with
local police, doctors, lawyers, and politicians in their communities, these brave women
save the lives of countless women and work to change mentalities and prevent future
crimes. Without proper analysis and knowledge the West cannot appropriately support the
women, lawmen, and governments who are fighting this plague without being seduced into
believing negative cultural stereotypes and further victimizing these communities.

QUEST FOR HONOR
A FILM BY MARY ANN SMOTHERS BRUNI
FILMMAKER BIO
MARY ANN SMOTHERS BRUNI
Mary Ann Smothers Bruni is a first time filmmaker. In April 1991 she walked up a
mountain above Turkey and into Iraq, where she joined the two million Kurds fleeing the
wrath of Saddam after the failure of the Kurdish uprising. She returned to Iraq in June, in
search of the families she had known in the mountains. Her experiences over the next
three years in Iraqi Kurdistan were recorded in a 1994 book and photographic exhibition
"Journey through Kurdistan," sponsored by The University of Texas, Texas Memorial
Museum, and University of Texas Press.
In 1998 Bruni launched "Stations for Leila," a tribute in Christian and Islamic images to her
friend Leila, who was brutally and mysteriously murdered in Duhok, Iraq, at the Southwest
School of Art and Craft as part of San Antonio's Contemporary Art Month. As Stations
traveled to galleries and museums, it expanded into an extensive exhibition called
"Stations for Leila: Ritual and Belief" that included images from seven different religions
in five different countries. The exhibit is always presented in a “Stations of the Cross”
format and emphasizes the death of innocent victims.
Bruni returned to Iraqi Kurdistan in 2002 to photograph an exhibition "Zagros Prayers"
featuring images of Kurdish women printed on silk for The Mountain Institute in
Washington, DC, the United Nations and the Kingdom of Bhutan. This exhibit was included
as part of the United Nation’s Year of the Mountain celebration in Bhutan in September
2002.
In 2005 she returned to scout locations and stories for three films on Kurdish women.
QUEST FOR HONOR is the first of these films she wants to make.
Bruni's earlier writings and photographs center on Texas-Mexican folk arts - drama, music,
poetry -- as seen through the lens of her studies of medieval and Latin American literature
at Mexico City College (now University of the Americas) and as a graduate student at The
University of Madrid. The background for her books and exhibitions are archived at the
prestigious Benson Latin American Collection of The University of Texas Library. Her
awards for that work include a “lazo de dama” medal from the Order of Isabel la Catolica,
awarded by Juan Carlos, King of Spain.
Bruni's published books include Journey through Kurdistan, Viva la Virgen de Guadalupe,
Rosita's Christmas Wish, and Los Pastores. Her photographs have been shown in
London, Bhutan, Canada, as well as many museums and galleries in the United States.

QUEST FOR HONOR
A FILM BY MARY ANN SMOTHERS BRUNI
CAST BIOS
"I love that we have freedom of press in Kurdistan. I don't even mind that people write
articles criticizing my governing… but my mother?" - Barham Salih, Prime Minister of Iraqi
Kurdistan about his mother Runak Rauf and free press in Kurdistan Slemani, Christmas
Eve - 2002.
RUNAK RAUF
In 1994, in the midst of a bitter civil war, Runak Khan Rauf, already in her 60’s, led a
march of women some 150 miles from Slemani to Erbil. She went straight to the newly
elected parliament, bypassing the Kurdish tribal and party leaders, and shamed the men
into ending the destructive. civil war.
She went on to help establish and direct The Women's Media Center in Slemani, which
publishes Rewan (Dawn), a newspaper on women’s issues, for which Runak often writes
and boldly speaks her mind, even when it opinions differ with her high profile political son
Barham Salih, former Primer Minister of Kurdistan and until he resigned recently, Deputy
Prime Minister of Iraq.
"My father raised me to be independent and educated,” states Runak. “But when I was 17
years old, he married me off. He picked a liberated man - a judge, who allowed me to be
independent. Still, I was careful to not interfere with my children's marriages. "
Runak Rauf continues in this mode. She is bold, brilliant and inspirational.
KALTHUM MURAD IBRAHIM
Kalthum, the daughter of a mullah, has a sixth grade education. After sixth grade, like
many Iraqi Kurdish girls of her generation, she went home to help her mother with the
house. As a mullah’s daughter, helping people comes naturally to her. "People often came
to my father for help," she says. Kalthum felt that her father raised his sons and daughters
with equal rights. "He never treated me differently than my brothers," she says.
Kalthum is given great respect in Rania. One local official exclaims, "Kalthum knows the
people here and works for them. She is better qualified for her job than many of the
women leaders in Slemani." While this statement may reflect the sentiment of Rania
officials about their own, it demonstrates the officials' opinion of Kalthum. She began her
journalistic career as a volunteer for The Women's Media Center. She later joined the
center as staff.
RUNAK FARAJ
“One of my students was murdered in an honor killing. That changed my whole life,” says
Runak Faraj, editor of Rewan, the Media Center’s newspaper. “Our work is hard. We are
facing problems that go back thousands of years.” Runak Faraj has written several books
and many articles on the problems women face in Iraqi Kurdistan. She also works in radio
and television media in her efforts to bring Iraqi Kurdish women to a better place.

QUEST FOR HONOR
A FILM BY MARY ANN SMOTHERS BRUNI
FULL CREDIT LIST
Written, Produced, and Directed by
Mary Ann Smothers Bruni
Producer
Lawrence Taub
Director of Photography
Kristian Dane Lawing
Second Unit
Director of Photography
Behzad Oliadonighi
Editors
Deborah Dickson
Timothy K. Smith
Gabriel Ernest Rhodes
Tim Ivy
Original Music Composed and Arranged by
Wendy Blackstone
Executive Producers
Frances Farenthold
Philip Knox Key
Sarah Elizabeth Lamar Bruni
Supervising Producer
Conan Chadbourne
Outreach Producer
Patricia Harding Smothers
Field Producer
Christian Jacks
Production Manager
Nariman Abdullah Ali
First Assistant Director
Mohammed Saddik Barzani

Co-Producer
Warzer Jaff
Chief Translator/Associate Producer
Ferhat Birusk Tugan
Associate Producers
Lawen Asad
Hemen Kaikay
Katia Maguire
Gulbahar Tely Asmar
Production Consultant
Jessica Cohen
Technical Writer/Translator
Aari Kamal Rifat
Cameramen
Hemin Kakaiy
Daniel Carter
Barbara Lesley Nicholls
Othmar Dickbauer
Car Camera
Nariman Abudullah Ali
Sound Recordists
Diana Elizabeth Ruston
Bryan Dembinski
James Jack Hutson
Consulting Editor
Nancy Baker
Field Editor
Allison Raskind
Additional Editors
Sakae Ishikawa
Adriana Pacheco
Editorial Consultant
Andrew Blackwell

Associate Editor
Conan Chadbourne
Stock Footage Researcher/Assistant Editor
Bryan Quinn
Assistant Editors
Carter Gunn
Sara Jane Shaw
Steven Orenstein
Grace Kline
Assistant Directors
Federico Negri
Rashin Mazaheri
Translators
Hero Abdul Rahman
Rebaz Amin
Lawen Asad
Deniz Ekici
Gulala Qadr Ameen
Galawizh Rasheed
Hidayat Salleh Mollahasan
Zardana Sbhan Esmail Barzani
Gulbahar Tely Asmar
Anwar
Hama
Zewar
Digital Imaging Engineer/
Still Photographer/
First Assistant Camera
Othmar Dickbauer
Digital Imaging Engineer
Dave Satin
Additional Sound Recordist
Karzan Madhat Mhamad Kakaiy
Unit Production Manager
Colleen Davie Janes
Production Assistants
Beth Brown
Marcela Gonzalez

Production Interns
Emmanuel Bermudez
Victor Hernandez
Security Guards/Drivers
Taha Abdulla Hassan
Kamaran Abobaker
Sayfula Ali Muhamed
Najmadeen Amed Saleh
Bakhtyar Athman Saber
Ako Husaen Abdullkhdir
Abrahem Huseen
Nehad Jafeer Star
Meran Kamal Nory
Saman Kamel
Adel Kareem
Rashad Khader Azeez
Ahmed Muhamed Ftahullah
Ahmed Muhsen Jalil
Allan Omer
Tayer Rahman Aomer
Haram Sady Omer
Aesa Sameen
Khader
Musicians: New York
Ranj Chener
Richard Stein
Zafer Tawil
Wendy Blackstone
Sound Engineer
Jim Cypherd
Musicians: The Kamkars
Houshang Kamkar
Bijan Kamkar
Pashang Kamkar
Ghashang Kamkar
Arjang Kamkar
Arsalan Kamkar
Ardeshir Kamkar
Ardavan Kamkar
Maryam Ebrahimpour
Hana Kamkar
Saba Kamkar
Neyriz Kamkar
Siavash Kamkar

Post Production Supervisor
Paul Leonardo, Jr.
Technical Advisor
Joe Beirne
Technical Supervisor
Conan Chadbourne
Supervising Sound Editor
Paul Bercovitch
Re-Recording Mixer
Patrick Donahue
Title Designer
John Kuramoto
Colorist
Scot Olive
Post Production Project Manager
Michael Ashburn
Post Production Services Provided by PostWorks, New York
Legal Counsel
Lawrence Taub
Tina Melo
Assistant to Lawrence Taub
Lesley North
Accountant
Jody Blazek, CPA
Assistant to Jody Blazek
Amanda Adams
Financial Services
Susan M. Hinger
Jane H. Causey
Bookkeeper
Wanda Woods

Transcribers
Lesley North
Cathy Hernandez
Publicity Services
David Magdael & Associates, Inc.
Production insurance provided by Film Emporium
HD Camera equipment supplied by Liman Video Rental, Co. NYC
Additional HD Camera equipment supplied by Abel Cine Tech New York
Additional Post Production Services provided by Final Frame
Archival Footage courtesy CNN
“Le Yel Jiabi”
From the album Galawij
Arranged and Performed by The Kamkars
Courtesy of The Kamkars
Copyright 2009, by Smothers Bruni Productions, LLC All Rights Reserved