Hasan Özgen

The documentary explores how our traditional culture of change and way of life, and the new spatial formations and lifestyles created by modernity, have existed in our "world of meaning" since time immemorial. Taking refuge in the testimony of time, place, and humanity, it aims to show that what we are actually changing is our way of life. As our neighborhood grows, is the global world offering us a "counter-civilization"? 60 minutes, Turkish-English subtitles, FullHD, Production 2016

Directed by Suha Arın in 1979, Tahtacı Fatma is one of the earliest documentaries on the ethnic Tahtacı community. In an interview conducted in 1999, Suha Arın mentions that he wished to make a follow-up film that includes updated information about their conditions as he had not been in touch since several years. However, Arın passed away in 2004 without realizing his wish. Why was Arın curious again about a community whom he already worked with twenty years earlier? The 40 Years After Fatma observes the changes which Tahtacıs went through, with the company of documentarists who worked with Suha Arın back in 1979, at their native land.

This documentary presents the past and present of Istanbul’s famed Grand Bazaar, whose history spans nearly five centuries. The film offers an intimate portrait of the bazaar through the perspective of a sherbet seller who has walked its streets for forty years, capturing the rhythms of daily life and the continuity of tradition within one of the city’s most enduring cultural spaces.

A documentary describing the architectural, cultural and social aspects of Kula, a small town in the Aegean region which, with its historic houses and traditional Turkish architecture, is a veritable "museum". The film also aims to create a public awareness of the need to preserve such houses. This film was made in conjunction with students of the School of Journalism and Broadcasting of the Faculty of Political Sciences at Ankara University.

The documentary explores one of Istanbul’s most significant art monuments, tracing nearly 700 years of cultural and artistic history through the mosaics and frescoes of the Kariye Mosque (Chora Church). By combining visual analysis with a distinctive soundscape—from Byzantine hymns and Orthodox prayers to the Islamic call to prayer and Ottoman takbirs—the documentary emphasizes Istanbul’s layered cultural continuity and enduring intercultural dialogue.