Burak Dal

Aslı Erdoğan, world-renowned author and activist, has fallen into silence after she fled to Germany. Incomplete Sentences is a feature documentary on her literature and life, leading to exile in Frankfurt, after the Turkish regime’s oppression results in her unlawful imprisonment. Now, she struggles in exile while everybody is waiting for her to write again. Right after getting out of prison Aslı starts telling her story to the director, wandering in the streets of Istanbul she recites parts from her books and explains the stories behind. When Aslı goes to Germany to receive the Erich Maria Remarque Award she cannot return; thus her exile, which she likens to a semi-open prison, begins. As her health deteriorates and keeps her from writing, the tragedy in her books becomes her own reality.

Having lost her husband, Sultan seeks remarriage to escape her loneliness. Despite her son's objections and her daughter's criticism that it's "too early," she is determined. To survive as a single woman, she breaks social norms, turns her house into a boarding house, opens a stall in the market, and enters male-dominated businesses. Her courageous stance inspires other women in the town and sparks the women's struggle for independence.

Sait, a man committed to his faith, has turned his back on the material world. This peaceful existence is shattered by a news story he sees on television and a municipal worker who comes knocking on his door in the middle of the night.

Sivan Encü, a young Kurdish man, provided for his family by "smuggling" through the Turkish-Iraqi border. When he was murdered in the 2011 Robozik (Roboski) Massacre, the responsibility of family's welfare was taken over by his younger brother Sinan, who lost his life in an unfortunate accident. This is the story of their grief-stricken mother Heyam and her resilience. Alongside Heyam's struggle, the film brings the voices of Robozik elders and notables to the forefront, who have experienced first-hand the social, political and economic dimensions of smuggling, which has been the backbone of survival for the locals for many generations.

Bakur (North) is a documentary that invites its audience to reflect on a war that has been continuing for decades and gives an insightful look on its main subject, the PKK. The film follows the lives of the guerilla in three different camps on the Kurdish region (north) that lies within Turkish borders.

Year 1969 - in Turkey. 60s youth were living the most excited days. There was a great effort to make a bridge in Istanbul, on the Bosphorus. Meanwhile, on the eastern border of Turkey, in a Kurdish city between the borders of Iran and Iraq that is left to its destiny, in Hakkari, Zap River was taking lives since there were no passage on it.

Adem Ekiz lives in Trabzon, Turkey, with his wife and 3 children. He is Muslim and his native language is Greek. He is playing "kemenche." Through his music, he silently breaks the chains between peoples by singing his traditional songs in both Turkish and Greek languages.

As a Greek tombstone of unknown origin is discovered underneath the floorboards in an old village house in Turkey, an almost forgotten story from the country’s creation unravels; the forced population exchange between Greece and Turkey in 1923. The engraved Cyrillic letters tell of a woman, Chrysoula Rodaki, who died in 1887. And so the search for her descendants begins: It leads director Kerem Soyyilmaz to local archives, where his own family's role in history is laid bare; to abandoned ghost towns and through the memories of older villagers - all while Soyyilmaz meets massive support for his quest from Greeks on the other side of the border. The stone becomes a portal to the past - and for a while, the trauma becomes redeemed when the previous owners of the village house return.

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Following the military intervention of 1980 the number of people who died during interrogation or in prison increased. As a result of the unsanitary conditions and torture in prisons, 299 people died while incarcerated.

The documentary Where Are You Going Bro?: The Exchange is about the human tragedy experienced before and after the 1924 Population Exchange. The film draws attention to the traumas which were created by the Exchange and whose effects still continue: Due to an article in the Treaty of Lausanne concerning population exchange hundreds of thousands of people were suddenly banished from their homes and settled in lands that were completely unknown to them without their consent.

The Samatya Sahakyan Choir was founded in 1703 and is the oldest church choir in Turkey. This documentary follows the choir's preparation for their 2020 New Year's concert step by step starting from their first rehearsals. Along the way, the creative history and social role of what is a vital part of Armenian identity and culture is explored through the stories of the choir’s members and their ancestors.