Walls of faded photographs, handwritten notes and the memories of those who were there — Çarêka Dûmahîyê asks what an archive can still tell us.
Every family in Kurdistan has a box of photographs that nobody has opened in years. Çarêka Dûmahîyê begins with those boxes. The series collects portraits, school pictures, wedding photographs and village snapshots, then goes looking for the people inside them.
The result is a slow, patient form of television. Each episode sets a single image on the wall and lets witnesses talk: who took it, what happened the day after, which faces are no longer with us.
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Why photographs matter
Official records of the region are incomplete, and many were destroyed. Private photographs survived because families carried them from house to house, across borders and through displacement. They are often the only proof that a village, a school or a festival existed at all.
“A photograph is a small door. Behind it there is always a longer story than the one you expected.”
The production team spent months visiting homes in Duhok, Zakho and Amêdî, scanning originals at high resolution and returning them to their owners. Every scan is catalogued, so the material can serve researchers long after the broadcast.
Watching the series
Çarêka Dûmahîyê airs on WAAR TV and is available on waarmedia.com. Viewers who hold photographs of historical value are invited to contact the programme team.
