Huner Saleem (
Kurdish: هونهر سالهم), also transliterated as
Huner Salim, (born 9 March 1964), is an
Iraqi–
Kurdish film director. He was born in the town of
Aqrah (Akre) in
Iraqi Kurdistan. He left
Iraq at the age of 17, and soon made his way to
Italy, where he completed school and attended university. Later on, he moved to
France where he lives now. In 1992, after the
First Gulf War, he filmed undercover the living conditions of Iraqi
Kurds. This footage was shown at the
Venice Film Festival. In 1998, he made his first movie,
Vive la mariée... et la libération du Kurdistan. His second,
Passeurs de rêves, came out in 2000, and his third film,
Vodka Lemon, released in 2003, won the
San Marco Prize at the
Venice Film Festival [1] He wrote and directed all three. He was honored with the prestigious title
Chevalier des Arts et Lettres by French Minister of Culture
Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres in 2005. His memoirs titled
My Father's Rifle has been published in
French,
English,
Greek and
Tamil[2]