Earth Song, the latest feature by Erol Mintaş, will celebrate its world premiere at the upcoming International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR, 29 January-8 February), where it has been selected for the Harbour strand. A Finnish-German co-production, the 118-minute drama marks Mintaş’s return to feature filmmaking more than a decade after his acclaimed debut, Song of My Mother [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
interview : Erol Mintaş
fiche film], and confirms his continued exploration of identity, memory and displacement within the Kurdish diaspora.

Penned by the director himself together with Mikko Viljanen and set primarily in Helsinki before shifting to Kurdistan, Earth Song centres on Rojin (played by Dilan Gwyn), a 40-year-old Kurdish-Finnish doctor who has devoted her life to humanitarian work. Her commitment to helping others has come at a personal cost: her prolonged absences have strained her marriage with her husband, Ferhat (Feyyaz Duman), while her teenage daughter Azad (Zenan Tünc) remains unaware that she is adopted. Haunted by the fear of repeating patterns of silence and rupture, Rojin struggles with how – and when – to tell her daughter the truth.

The fragile balance of Rojin’s family life is further destabilised when her father, Nizam (Ali Seçkiner Alıcı), arrives from Sweden for an unexpected visit. Carrying the weight of decades-old guilt, he reveals a devastating secret: he is not Rojin’s biological father. Her real parents were killed in 1980s Kurdistan as a direct consequence of his actions, during the aftermath of Turkey’s military coup of 12 September 1980. Shortly after making this confession, Nizam takes his own life, leaving Rojin to confront a legacy of trauma she never knew existed.

Determined to understand her origins and to rebuild a truthful relationship with her daughter, Rojin travels to Kurdistan with her father’s ashes. The journey becomes both a physical and an emotional reckoning, as she navigates a landscape marked by political violence, personal loss and unresolved collective memory. Through Rojin’s search, Earth Song unfolds as a multigenerational portrait of displacement and belonging, tracing how inherited silences shape families across borders and decades.

“With this film, I wanted to delve into the feelings of parenthood and untold truths between family members, collective trauma, and everyday life in the diaspora while keeping our concerns about the future of our planet in the background in a very subtle way,” reads the director’s statement. “Overcoming trauma and healing, which are very important for self-recovery and self-discovery, are vital for everyone, especially for people living in diaspora. This is the only way to create healthy relationships with people and the environment around us for the future,” he continues.

The project’s key creatives include DoP Juice Huhtala, production designer Nanna Hirvonen and sound designer Sebastian Schmidt.

Mintaş comes from a distinctive background that bridges artistic practice and academic research. A doctoral researcher at Aalto University’s Department of Film, Television and Scenography, he previously studied computer science before completing an MA in cinema, with a thesis focused on Andrei Tarkovsky and existentialism in film. His short Snow won multiple awards, including Best Short Film at the Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival, whilst Song of My Mother went on to claim the Heart of Sarajevo Awards for Best Film and Best Actor in 2014, accumulating 14 international prizes in total.

After relocating from Istanbul to Helsinki, Mintaş founded the Academy of Moving People and Images, a film school dedicated to BIPOC and mobile communities in Finland, funded by the Kone Foundation between 2019 and 2022.

Earth Song is being produced by Mete Sasioglu and Mintaş himself for Sons of Lumière, with Anna Blom for Jamedia Production (Finland) and Tanja Georgieva-Waldhauer for Elemag Pictures (Germany). The project has received support from the Finnish Film Foundation, YLE, the Nordisk Film & TV Fond, MDM - Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung, the Finnish Impact Film Fund, Konst Samfundet, Kirkon Mediasäätiö, Folkets Bio, Cinemanse and Oskar Öflunds Stiftelse.

Cinemanse will distribute the feature in Finland, whilst Folkets Bio will handle its Swedish release.