JahanShah Ardalan

Eight years in the making, Beyond Words gives us a generous look into the secret mystical cermonies of the Kurdestani Dervishes and Soufis, but offers up a chance at introspection, for as the director puts it: “Sometimes the further you go away, the deeper you go within.”

Beyond Words was mostly shot in the Iranian Kurdistan. At first I went there to look further into my family’s 1000 years of documented History in Kurdistan. An old childhood mystery about Kurdistan gradually took over and changed my focus. That enigma shrouded in myths and folk tales, centered on the elusive men of the Ghaderi order of Derwishes or Sufies in Kurdistan.

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Continued

On my first visit to Kurdistan I was permitted not only to witness, but record their ceremonies in one of the oldest towns in Kurdistan. I considered it an honor and a privilege to have been given the chance. Over a period of 8 years I went back to Kurdistan to gather more footage of these seemingly ordinary men.

Their initial chants prepare them for a journey. Passion fuels and music guides them. If necessary, they slash their way through what one thinks one already knows. Their dance is a celebration of discovering the divinity within. The divinity shared by all. As different as these ceremonies appeared from anything I had experienced before, I gradually came to realize that I had witnessed it all before. Performed by different people with different religions in different languages. Beyond Words is a film about these personal trips on a journey taken by many. Sometimes the further you go away, the deeper you go within.