When you’re sitting at the airport, waiting for a flight to Kurdistan the only thing to do is obviously to explore some proper Kurdish music. And since you’re heading for a film festival you check if you can’t find any good tunes from your favourite Kurdish film.

But then end with another film by the same director, Half Moon. The film is by Bahman Ghobadi, whom I had a good chat with at another festival a decade ago – but it’s Hossein Alizadeh who sings the song, Laments in Joy.

This is a song about a nation that is not allowed to be a nation, its history and expectations, all the snow and about growing old, disappear into white, laid down in frozen ground. I assume – of course I have no idea, I haven’t mastered Kurdish yet – but I got more than a week now to do that. Until then I’ll just have to guess based on the accompanying clip from Half Moon.

Text: Ásgeir H Ingólfsson