Discoveries from Turkey World Cinema

Healers, Midwives, Witches is an experimental documentary that traces connections between village midwives and the figures of healers and witches found in historical archives. Moving between archival engravings from London and intimate conversations with the filmmaker’s grandmother and great-aunt, former midwives in rural southeast Turkey, the film brings different times and places into dialogue. Through archives and oral histories, recurring gestures, rituals, and ways of care reappear across centuries. The film approaches the witch not as a myth, but as a figure shaped by fear, control, and misogyny, carried forward through women’s memory, labour, and survival.

This documentary addresses the repeated desecration of the grave of teacher Süleyman Aksu, who lost his life in the bomb attack in Suruç on July 20, 2015. Graves carry not only the memories of the deceased but also the memory and resistance of a people. These sites of collective memory become targets of hatred and conflict. The desecration of Süleyman Aksu's grave and the social context behind grave desecrations in Turkey shape the focus of the documentary. Through interviews and striking images, this documentary makes grave attacks visible while also exposing the struggles against policies of erasure.

Bêrîvan and Helîn are two sisters living in the Sur district of Diyarbakır. Bêrîvan cultivates an interest in photography and video. While Bêrîvan shoots images of life around her, Helîn spends her time with her cat Nokê. Suddenly, the authorities announce that a blockade will be applied in the district of Sur... The blockade is forcing people to leave the area, but Bêrîvan and Helîn continue their daily activities of bringing food to their fathers. However, one day, Helîn's cat disappears. The cat's disappearance creates tension between the two sisters. Bêrîvan is trying to cope with her obligation to leave Sur and the difficulties of becoming a grown-up. She will reclaim her disrupted life and her memory.

A Greek-Turkish couple and their little daughter, travel with their caravan in the Turkish seaside of the Aegean Sea. This time however, their journey ends with a fantastic reflection of a tale that the parents always tell to their daughter.

A young woman confronts her thoughts as dreams blur reality.

Esra, a 19-year-old hotel housekeeper, finds the warmth of family she lacks in a fraud gang and will do everything she can to keep the gang from falling apart.

An independent feature film exploring the three states of love across three sections, featuring occasional absurd and surreal scenes.

A series of events unfolding at a cafe reveals the relationships and tensions between employees Baran, Salih, and Neslihan, and the manager. As the cafe prepares to close for the night, relationships and conflicts develop as each person grapples with their own problems and goals. Baran struggles to save money for surgery, while Salih and Neslihan have their own agendas. After work, Baran saves money in his locker, encountering tensions with the manager and Salih and flirting with Neslihan. However, when the money from Baran's piggy bank is stolen, suspicion and paranoia escalate. The manager reveals that the boss wants an employee fired and is pressuring them to do so. This creates distrust and rivalry among the employees.

A short animation inspired by Kazimir Malevich's poem of the same name. Using cut-out and rotoscope tech-niques, the film brings to life a surreal and fragmented visual narrative that reflects the poem's illogical structure. The piece transforms Malevich's experimental poetic language into motion, rhythm, and typographic form, offering a sensory journey through the abstract world of Ukrainian avant-garde.

The fourth film in the "Traces of Anatolian Civilizations" series, "The Unquenchable Fire of Lycia" consists of two 30-minute episodes. The documentary reflects the Lycian Civilization, another stop in the Anatolian people's civilizational evolution. Indeed, the Lycian Civilization is a "fire" that finds its historical continuity in the Anatolian people's resistance to independence. In a sense, it is a magnificent and unquenchable "fire." During the filming of the film, the Lycian region, located between Antalya and Fethiye, was meticulously scanned step by step in two separate seasons, consulting with expert scientists.

A bulky man with a long messy hair and beard enters a graveyard, digs up a coffin, and then drags it into an abandoned shop. There, he performs a necromantic ritual to raise the corpse from the dead. After the spell is cast, the man sits on a chair in front of a mirror while the corpse rises back to life behind him.

Behind you lies the sea; before you stands the enemy. This is the reality for the people of Gaza—and for Palestinian journalist Sami, who records it all with his 360° camera in the VR documentary Under the Same Sky. Driving along the Mediterranean coast in a press vehicle, he documents the war in the Gaza Strip. On one side are peaceful waters; on the other, heart-wrenching ruins.

Filming a tiny room from the perspective of a bored man.

A post-cinematic allegory on creating with AI, interweaving passages from Pinocchio, The Velveteen Rabbit, Frankenstein, and Borges’ The Circular Ruins into a meditation on becoming real.

An intimate look at American artist Nancy Atakan, who has spent 50 years balancing life as a visible minority in Istanbul.

13 ballets from 4 generations from Çorum's Başpınar village and their success story.

A stop-motion movie about finding direction.

With no previous film experience, the master director finds herself in the magical world of film sets, embarking on an artistic journey that began with coincidences that changed the course of her life. Inspired by the work of established filmmakers, Biket İlhan developed her skills as if she were attending a school. Despite facing many challenges, including the difficulty of finding producers for her films, she persevered and built her extraordinary legacy brick by brick. She took bold steps to achieve this, always maintaining her commitment to art and his independent stance in the world of cinema. Are you ready to witness her determination to realise her dreams, her resilience in the face of challenges and the intricacies of the filmmaking process — all without worrying about box-office success, but simply following her heart?

An experimental video art, weaving together echoes of Dorian Gray, myth, and literature — an exploration of beauty’s fragile glow and its slow surrender to decay.

The King-Seer of the Non-Existent and His God's Fool Son is a performative film unfolding between theatre, ritual, and dream — a vision of power, sacrifice, and fate. From the queen’s betrayal with an idol-deity is born a fool-son — a child of alien will, a mockery of his father. The King, consumed by jealousy and dread, devours his queen and weds the very one who should have been his heir. Yet their union is doomed: fate is relentless, and the son kills the father not for the throne, but as the fulfillment of an ancient decree. Thus the kingdom dissolves, vanishing into the void, where power and sacrifice are eternal.

Arkhe; the name of origin and essence, the source of the cycle between human and nature. The film makes the nurturing and transformative character of nature visible while questioning humanity’s place within these cycles. On a journey of cycles, humanity sees itself as an inseparable part of nature as it joins in its endless exchange.

After hearing about her father’s sudden death, Meral comes with her young son Ali from Germany to the village in Turkey where her mother lives. She plans to stay for a while. At her invitation, her old friend Nilay also comes to visit. Nilay finds Meral distant and quiet, very different from how she remembers her. Ali is a withdrawn child who has almost stopped speaking. Meral has a reason for calling Nilay, she wants to leave Ali in her care. One night, Meral disappears and doesn’t come back. The grandmother, shaped by a life under patriarchy, is left with questions she doesn’t want to face. Ali is left alone in a life where he feels lost. And Nilay is left with Ali’s growing attachment as she tries to find her own way forward.

A young man who has decided to end his life leaves behind a suicide note and gives himself one final day. What seems like an ordinary day gradually turns into a journey of discovery, revealing the profound meaning hidden in seemingly mundane moments. Unexpected conversations lead him to question the small yet powerful meanings of life. Slowly, the thought of suicide gives way to an existential inquiry and a search for traces of hope.

Onur Aldoğan is the director of the production, which is the sequel to the 2019 film Cin Torment.

Sequel to the hit franchise.

Mir: Anka tells the story of a group of friends who have to face completely different realities after receiving bad news.

Jinn Day is about what happens when a family is haunted by a tribe of jinn.

Part 3 in the franchise.

A little child's conscience tries to be a hope for an old woman's home.

On the brink of extinction, a spirited individual (Ellie Murphy) changes her perception of life after realizing a profound truth that takes her on a journey to find self-fulfillment, leaving traces of her existence everywhere she goes and touches, along with a melody (Judah Earle) that reflects her essence.

The Head is the story of an "other". Nuri is one of those people who can keep their heads straight up only with the help of the rope on their heads. After an incident, Nuri's rope gets loose, now he is different from other people.

The top boss won’t leave the last seat. Everyone tries to move them but fails. Then, one last person shows up. The Last Seat is a funny story about power.