A very nice film, with many good qualities. First of all the cast: the pretty (and talented) Golshifteh Farahani and the less known but equally intriguing Korkmaz Arslan, together with several convincing actors in supporting roles. Interestingly, neither Farahani nor Aslan are Kurds (she is Iranian and he is Turkish…).Then we have the undisputed talent of Mr Hiner Saleem (who really is Kurd), whose filmography already has gained him a well deserved fan base.Finally, you'll see Kurdistan. The ugly, cold Kurdistan with its stony hills and gaunt landscapes. Poor, superstitious and dangerously undeveloped, with its violent attitude and undersized rides. And you won't be able to help but like it.

One of the biggest problems in Kurdish cinema is the lack of new ideas. Stories about war, poverty, loss of home, displacement, orphanhood and search for missing persons are used over and over, making Kurdish films not an industry of all kinds of films, but into a genre of similarly themed war films.Repetitive themes and tropes also plague western films and it would take some really imaginative thinking (such as a robot-powered theme park set in the Old West, that is Westworld) to create something new.This film is a genre mashup. It does not revolutionize the genre of the western, but gives it a new breath of life, by setting it in modern times (today) and in the Kurdlands rather than the Old West.There are many parallels between the Old West and the fringes of Iraqi Kurdistan and this film plays on that. Places with low populations, far from the city, corrupt local authority, the difficulty of the central government in applying law and order, the difficulty or the terrain, low levels of education, lots of guns and the potential for conflict.We have two stories here, Baran, a sheriff who wants to apply law and order to the region and Govend, a teacher who wants to teach and bring education to the children of the area. The film does a good job with the story, even if it is predictable and straightforward.My issue with this film is that it is fluffy, cute and nice, when it could've been much better. This film had the potential of being a 10/10 film, but chose to polish the edge off and make it a simple flick.For example, Baran and Govend are good, while Aziz Aga is bad. It's straightforward, black and white, no gray, no nuances, no subtlety. The Kurdish state is good and local tribal chiefs are bad. It's too simplistic. I would've loved to see a complex and complicated relationship between Baran and Govend. I'd love to see a film where Aziz Aga, despite being a corrupt absolute ruler turns out to be right. Or it turns out to be that he is a peshmerga war hero who became corrupt. Or that he was also the sheriff once, giving Baran a glimpse of his own future. I want to see how the smuggling market is all gray area, with the central government using its power not to shut down all smuggling, but just its competition. Show the hypocrisy of the Iraqi Kurdish government in working with the Turkish army against separatist Kurds in Turkey. Perhaps Aziz Aga is a Pan- Kurdist who sees the big picture whereas the Iraqi Kurdish government is happy with having liberated a slice of Kurdistan.Show how parents have to choose between educating their teens or making them work on farms. Show how parents disagree with the syllabus of the central government's school.You don't have to show all these things, but you should show at least something deeper. This film is Disney-like in its simplicity.Great films are about subjectivity, about hard choices and difficult compromises, about change, things that make you think. This doesn't do any of these things.These are things that this film could've made us think about:Is the central government's rule absolute? This central government appoints Baran from Erbil to be the sheriff of this small town. Does this small town not get a say in this decision? There is an interesting strong central state versus regional powers discussion to be had, but this film ignores it.Is Iraqi Kurdistan the final stop in the Kurdish liberation movement? Should Erbil fight Kurdish separatist movements in Iran/Syria/Turkey that use its territory for smuggling or as a safe haven?What if a local corrupt chieftain involved in drug trafficking spends his money on building schools, orphanages, hospitals, etc.? Should the central government's sheriff shut down his operation? Why? If the central government's contribution to the area is just a single sheriff and some firearms, aren't the locals better off with the corrupt chieftain?Kurdish films need to be more like life and less like fairy tales.This is a good film, nonetheless, but there's no compelling reason for non-Kurds or non-Kurdophiles to watch it, when there are many better and deeper films out there.

"My Sweet Pepper Land" follows the formula of the classic western, with a rugged good guy trying to protect a damsel in distress from the inevitable evil rich guy. There's obviously nothing wrong with that, if that plot's good enough for Sergio Leone it's good enough for anyone. On the other hand though, this is hardly a creative film. People seem to really dig the combination of western storytelling (in various meanings) with the unlikely setting of a mountain in Iraqi Kurdistan, the movie mostly thrives on that...gimmick, for lack of a better word. You get a lot of insight into Kurdic history, a subject I knew very little about, apart from that the movie isn't very special. The plot is predictable (granted, all westerns tend to be), there's not a lot of suspense even though they're really trying, and even the standard final showdown is really more of an anti-climax. "My Sweet Pepper Land" is an interesting watch, but not always a superbly entertaining one.

What's the Kurdish word for 'spaghetti?' "My Sweet Pepper Land" is a classic Spaghetti Western set in a remote corner of Iraqi Kurdistan. Upright stalwart hero, distressed damsel, band of lawless ruffians to be dispatched, and, as an interesting twist, a group of well armed feminist freedom fighters who don't like anybody very much. It's a culturally interesting story, flawed by several gratuitous episodes of cruelty to animals being passed off as entertainment-- kind of wrecked the film for us. The high point was the female lead, Golshifteh Farhani (as Govend) playing a melodious Kurdish-6 pan drum. Along with the other music, that made for a much better than average soundtrack.Although classed as a Comedy (it has its moments) at the 2014 Palm Springs International Film Festival, it isn't.