Zuhair Abdulmasih Ilya Abdoka (1948–2025), a celebrated Kurdish filmmaker, cinematographer, and veteran Peshmerga of the September Revolution, passed away on 21 December 2025 in Sweden after a long battle with illness.
Born in 1948 in Ankawa, the historic Christian suburb of Erbil, to Chaldean-Syriac-Assyrian parents, Abdulmasih earned a Bachelor’s degree in Directing from the Academy of Fine Arts in Baghdad in 1972–1973. He joined the ranks of the Great September Revolution under Mulla Mustafa Barzani, was wounded in a bombing, and was forced into exile following the 1975 Algiers Agreement.
Abdulmasih’s artistic career broke new ground in theater and cinema. He directed his first play, The Bishop’s Candlesticks—an adaptation of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables—in Ankawa in 1969. He went on to direct and film Towards Freedom, recognized as the first movie about the Kurdish revolution, presented in Syriac-Chaldean. A founder of Kurdistan TV, he was a pioneer of both Kurdish and Syriac theater and cinema.
His body was received with honour and dignity in Kurdistan, with wreaths of respect and loyalty placed on his coffin. The reception at Erbil International Airport was attended by government and party officials, the head of the Foreign Relations Office, numerous Christian religious leaders, and his family—testament to the deep respect he commanded across Kurdish society.
A humanitarian, artist, and patriot, Abdulmasih’s contributions to theater, drama, and cinema have left an enduring legacy in Kurdish arts and culture.
