Discoveries from Turkey World Cinema

We witness parts of a filming session of a video-message to Western society, where Indonesian garment worker Yanti is constantly repeating the same sentence in different pronunciations and tones to do it in the ‘correct’ way.

The journey that begins unexpectedly merges with unclaimed reminiscences. Searched for in the dark regions of memory, the funeral is found in an ocean village. When the lights come on, dream rises again.

Erhan Arik, a young Turkish photographer, was born in Ardahan, a city located in eastern Turkey. he grew up in a house where Armenians once lived, driven out by the massacres of 1915. he had never really been interested in this episode of history… one night, in a dream, a man's voice asks him: "Why did you turn into a barn the room where my wife baked bread, where my children played? ». Erhan wakes up suddenly without being able to go back to sleep. He gets up, leaves the house and walks in the night for hours until dawn…

A relationship that begins with a simple act of kindness between Anil and his new neighbor Sahra gradually takes on a disturbing turn.

She loved the forest. Enough to die in one.

The Volunteer tells the story of the We Will Stop Femicide Platform (KCDP) and its fight for justice on behalf of femicide victims in Turkey. The film not only follows the lawsuit seeking the organization’s dissolution but also highlights the inspiring efforts of volunteers in femicide cases, presenting a powerful narrative of solidarity and the struggle for women’s rights.

This short film is the story of two young sisters trying to reach a magical and shining pearl through the orders of their deceased grandmother, which will open a portal to parallel universes.

Gazi Haşim and his friends, who served in the Korean peacekeeping force, miss their days in Korea, but they also feel a deep sadness at being forgotten. During the Syrian civil war, Haşim and his friends are looking for an excuse to return to the front. Finally, the reason they have been searching for has come to them. The veterans make their preparations and set off. They want to reach the front as soon as possible. On their journey, they begin to encounter the ancient stories of Anatolia. They begin to understand, in a tragicomic way, how this land has been home to great civilizations. On the journey to reach their destination, they begin to reflect on their inner struggles and make calculations. On the night of July 15, 2015, they find themselves on the side of a great resistance, caught in the dilemma of whether to go or return.

Sleeping disorders are omnipresent in this day and age. In this desktop diary, a resident of Amsterdam cannot sleep, absorbed by the genocides and atrocities being broadcast in real time.

The success story of Arif Develi, who lost his father at the age of 2, started working at 6, and at 22, with integrity and honesty, moved to Istanbul to pursue his business, carrying his entrepreneurial spirit in his suitcase.

The Geezer tells the story of a man who has dedicated his life to his only passion: dancing. He lost his wife, kids, and wealth to pursue his dreams, but nevertheless still has the ambition to live, the passion and his joy for life. Deliveryman by day, dancer by night, he is definitely one of the “others.”

Among Roots focuses on the struggle against GMO and hybrid seeds carried on by the volunteers and supporters of Karaot Seed Association, which preserves the local seeds that are about to disappear and also tries to reproduce and maintain them.

A moving tribute to a beloved uncle, showcasing his journey as an immigrant in Germany, his resilience, and the lasting impact he left on those he loved.

A woman's dreams and realities in an endless night...

Rıfat, who has been struggling with an unknown illness for two years, is dragged to the brink of an inner war while struggling with paranoid thoughts in the midst of social events.

Özge and Nisa come to Istanbul from Izmir to work in a media company. The director at the media company they started to work with is famous for horror movies and after an e-mail, he meets a person named Cafer. Cafer says he has real genie images. He even sends a medallion to the media company to prove that the images in the hard drive are real. Whoever wears this locket is haunted by the Jinn. Unaware of this, Özge and Nisa open the cargo from Cafer and accidentally wear the medallion while watching the footage. Since they do not have a place to stay yet, Özge and Nisa stay at the media company at night after everyone working in the company leaves. But they are no longer alone. Since they put on the medallion, the Jinn have already arrived at their place of residence.

The Road is a deeply personal experimental film by Jana Hammoudeh, chronicling her journey as a nomadic soul, always on the move yet never truly belonging. Shot across three separate road trips, the film blends visual poetry with intimate monologues in multiple languages, reflecting the fragmented nature of the protagonist’s life. The film’s segments—Leaving Amman, Scrambled Eggs, and Postcards to a Friend—explore themes of love, loss, and freedom. The first segment, set in Amman, presents a conflicted relationship with home, inspired by Charles Bukowski’s Let It Enfold You. The second, in French, revisits past romances, while the third, narrated in Kazakh and Urdu, contemplates departure and longing. Through dreamlike cinematography and raw reflections, The Road captures the bittersweet beauty of transient nature of life and self-discovery.

An indie synthpop duo from Ankara "SOFT ANALOG" tries to rehearse their new album's premiere in Istanbul. They have only one week to practice before the premiere. However, they do not know how to solve sudden problems in their most happy and anxious week.

Employees are aliens to each other in a matchmaking website company. A new employee has a cunning plan to get them together.

Ahmet is a taxi driver, one night a trans woman gets into his taxi. The woman immediately recognizes her old friend Ahmet, but Ahmet cannot recognize her. They play a guessing game about who she is.

A woman who adopts a cat for her young daughter discovers that a mysterious entity also visits their home with the cat. A man, who makes a deal with an underground clinic to resurrect his deceased mother, begins to experience strange events upon her return. Despite all their efforts, a couple without children find their cat transformed into a child through a spell. But can the child ever be truly "real"?

On August 6, gay, bisexual, transvestite, and transsexual activists gathered in Bursa to hold a march and then hold a press conference to protest the lawsuits filed by the Bursa and Istanbul Governorships seeking the closure of their associations, but Bursaspor fans and the police prevented them.

Asil, a childless software engineer, takes his wife Deniz and her cousin Efsun to his grandfather’s old village house, only to unleash a centuries‐old family curse of vengeful djinn tied to a tragic ancestor, which begins to possess them and drive them mad. Desperate, Asil enlists the village healer Döndü, whose botched exorcism only deepens the terror, leaving the family to wonder whether they can ever break the blood-bound curse.

The life story of Hüseyin Kızılırmak, born in Kasımpaşa, Istanbul... Hüseyin Kızılırmak, a free-spirited, adventurous man who lived on the fishing boat named Kızıl since his 20s and survived until the age of 80 by selling the fish he caught, told us about his life in the most natural way. He died of cancer shortly after the completion of the documentary.

Serap, who struggles with the problems of not being able to become a mother, begins an extraordinary journey into motherhood when she gives birth to a red fish one day...

In Grandma Zeki, Berivan and her grandmother have a cosy conversation via the camera, and together they joyfully introduce the colourful world of Berivan’s grandmother to the viewer. Grandma Zeki lives alone in a house with a garden located in one of Mardin’s villages. She welcomes us into her elderly world, show casing her rings and bracelets, various pickles and basil in the garden.

We Are Not Familiar With a Generation That Has No Understanding of Sadness constructs a narrative around the artists’ fundamental research on the mimeograph. By using significant political texts and transcripts from history as a reference point, against this historical background, they reflect upon the contemporary situation in Türkiye. In affinity with previous generations, who are saddened by the perished dreams and ideals, they search for agency under despotism—attempting to negotiate their elusive position between two extremes of utopian escapism and revolutionary struggle as recourse to estrangement.

When you lose everything, can a game save your dreams? The film follows two Afghan brothers: Sir (21), Allahverdi (17) who live in illegal housing together with around twenty other men. Cricket, an unusual sport for Turkey, is the biggest passion of these migrants, where they feel at home and forget all their troubles. The film juxtaposes the daily-life images of those immigrants in an observational style with a cricket match accompanied by an entertaining live commentary. Through the eyes of Afghan refugees in Turkey, we learn how cricket becomes a tool of resistance, while the cricket field becomes a piece of home.

Tomatoes, peppers, and all the other plants in Adana’s Çetirevli village survive on medications, just like the diagnosed depression patients who make up half of the village population. As the production of pepper paste—the village’s source of livelihood—goes through various stages such as harvesting, sorting, and grinding, the burden of physically heavy work on people’s mental worlds gradually increases. During a summer coinciding with the pepper harvest, the director retraces the summer memories of her childhood and pursues the question, "how to make pepper paste when depressed? The camera follows her uncle Mehmet, who suffers from depression, his wife Naziye, and her elder uncle Yakup, who lives in the same house and also grapples with depression.

Narrative revolves around an individual confined within the constraints of their existing reality, yearning to break free into a dream world—only to realize that the dream world had been their prison all along.

A documentary film about Istanbul.

In this satirical comedy, Sadri Alışık portrays Marko Paşa, a fictionalized version of the esteemed Ottoman physician and humanitarian Marko Apostolidis. The film humorously explores the character’s role as a compassionate listener to the public’s woes, reflecting the real-life saying “Tell your troubles to Marko Paşa”.