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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
Entertainment
Susan Chenery

‘Love is the answer’: the Kurdish refugees finding art and healing in a country that imprisoned them

Mostafa Azimitabar Farhad Bandesh Angus McDonald Kurdish Prison Natalie Grono New South Wales Refugee Iran Australia
Farhad Bandesh and Mostafa Azimitabar are the subjects of Angus McDonald’s new film Freedom is Beautiful.
Farhad Bandesh and Mostafa Azimitabar are the subjects of Angus McDonald’s new film, Freedom is Beautiful, showing at the Melbourne documentary film festival. Photograph: Natalie Grono

Mostafa Azimitabar and Farhad Bandesh are walking around the Byron Bay hinterland, in a state of wonder at the world.

This is a world that was denied to them, along with their freedom, for too long; in their flight from persecution in Iran, these two already traumatised young Kurdish men would be detained by the Australian federal government for almost eight years.

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