by SARAH ROWLAND

"The idea of this forgotten bundle of bones just buried there - nameless, faceless - has haunted me since I was 17."

Eylem Kaftan is talking about visiting her Aunt Guzide's unmarked grave in 1992. Back then, Kaftan's family was told that her father's long-lost sister's slaying was an act of revenge between warring Kurdish tribes. But rumours soon surfaced that Guzide had signed her own death warrant when she married the man she loved, instead of the man who was chosen for her by her adoptive family. This life-altering revelation eventually led the Montreal-based director to travel through some of Turkey's most remote villages investigating Guzide's unsolved murder. The result is the deeply personal and moving documentary Vendetta Song.

While the term "namus," meaning honour, was a common word for Kaftan growing up in the Middle East, it wasn't until Guzide's tragic ending that she truly understood its significance.

"Her murder forced me to leave my little bubble, which was my somewhat privileged life in Istanbul," says Kaftan, who migrated to Canada in '98.

"Little by little, my personal and political conscience began to grow, and I started realizing that the actual ritual of honour killing, which maybe sounds exotic to Westerners, is only the tip of the iceberg. It's the threat of the honour killing that makes women's lives so difficult. Not being able to go from one village to another, or attend school for fear they might meet boys, and not being allowed the freedom to follow their hearts and dreams - these are all ways of killing them too."

Throughout her sometimes-dangerous search for a murder suspect (or suspects), Kaftan encounters a cast of memorable characters, all dealing with the oppressive tradition of arranged marriages. They include her tour guide, who admits that if his wife, whom he married when she was 12, left him, there would be a legally sanctioned hit on her head. There's the young man who vows to die a lonely old man because his family can't afford the dowry to marry the only woman he loves. And then there's Leyla, a shy 12-year-old girl who salivates at the thought of going to school, but since she's the eldest daughter of a dirt-poor family, she has to stay at home to help her mother with the household chores.

"It was so difficult leaving her," says Kaftan. "I have this memory of her lifting this mattress and there were these flattened head scarves. I realized that that was her little treasure. It was all her dreams packed in that mattress. I didn't want to take one because it was all she had. But she insisted on giving me this goodbye present."

It's no surprise that rediscovering her Kurdish roots and seeing how much more needs to be done for the women of her native land has had a profound effect on the soft-spoken filmmaker.

"I realize that I owe something to people like Leyla and my aunt's generation," says Kaftan, who hooked up Leyla's village with Internet access. "My life is now divided by two countries, and my work with them will continue indefinitely - both in terms of making films and helping them in other areas of development."

Vendetta Song screens at the NFB Cinema, Sunday, June 26. For more info, visit www.dliproductions.ca

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