Derya Durmaz

Brides

Two teenage girls in search of freedom, friendship, and belonging run away from their troubled lives with a misguided plan of traveling to Syria.

Elaha

Elaha, 22, believes she must restore her supposed innocence before she weds. A surgeon could reconstruct her hymen but she cannot afford such an operation. She asks herself: why does she have to be a virgin anyway, and for whom?

Brigitte Bardot

A "modern" Turkish family expects an exchange student from France who will accompany her 10-year-old daughter for the summer. Their shy daughter will not only practice French, but also have a friend finally. When this "expected visitor" came Nergiz is frustrated that the boy's name is Hafid and she does not find him "French" enough.

Once Upon a Time

Nehir comes across to someone singing songs all night long. She likes what she listens so much that she goes after this mysterious musician.

The Blue Wave

Deniz and her friends, who have been apart for the summer, have much to tell each other. While adults are busy with their professional lives, Deniz and her friends are still confused about their university plans. Through the worries of their daily routines, they make plans for the future, yet the challenges of teenage years/adolescence are burdensome. Deniz desires a life that is different than the ideals of her friends. A song nobody has heard of, a hopeless love, solitude. A different world, but where exactly?

Do Not Forget Me Istanbul

Several directors from countries of the region were invited to create stories taking place in and around the beautiful city of Istanbul, in the vein of “Paris, je t’aime” and “New York, I love you”. They come together to remind viewers that Istanbul’s history does not belong only to the people of Turkey.

Love and Revolution

Love and Revolution is a story that puts the years of youth at its center. These are the years in which humankind feels the sense of belonging, the urge to take root in life in the strongest way. This is a period in which the existing identities are not adequate and all kinds of thirst (intellectual, sexual, psychological, political, etc.) disturb the existence. The kernel of the sense of youth, which gives the movie its spirit, is desire. The desire for Love and Revolution.

Hair

A wig-maker from Istanbul, who suffers from cancer, becomes obsessed with a woman who enters his shop one day.

Tales from Kars

Omnibus of five short films that were shot in the Turkish province of Kars, on the border with Armenia. Among the five directors are three debutants who were chosen to film their stories after winning a scenario contest. The final result is a sympathetic collection of films that remain small and simple: the puppy love between a boy and a girl on their winter trip to school, the memories of a young woman about her mother's response to her first menstruation and bra, and the story of a student who returns to his village, but all too soon flees again for the past that is waiting for him there. The stories take place strikingly often around the cemetery and look at things from the past being revealed. The last contribution to the omnibus film is also significantly called ‘a small truth’.

Refugee

Sivan, at around the age of 20, is a native of the Southeastern region of Anatolia. His father Saho is the leader of the Givdanli tribe who stays distant both to the state and to the insurgents who are influent in the region, in order to secure its existence. One day, Sivan meets with the girl he loves, Berfin in a field around the village. The same day the field is burnt by saboteurs and the whole harvest of the village is wasted. The investigation initiated after the incident, changes Sivan's life drastically. Taken in for an interrogation, Sivan is caught between the police and the insurgents. Thinking his son's life is in peril, Saho assures Sivan's fleeing out of the country. Taken to Germany by the help of a illegal network, Sivan is located in a refugee camp. However, in this new land whose language is alien to him, Sivan will go through an ordeal which will add a new dimension to the residue of his experiences in Turkey.

House of Nightmares: Sleepwalkers

Tolga is a science-fiction writer who has never been able to achieve the success of his first book. The signature day of his last book also results in a fiasco. Tolga, who has become a depressed soul, also fights with his lover Ebru and is abandoned. Tolga comes to the Nightmare House, which is far from the crowd of the city, hoping to listen to herself and to catch the muse again. Here, when he wakes up in the morning, the fatigue he does not make sense and some strange events he encounters drag Tolga into the chaos he cannot get out of. The fierce struggle confronts a father and son. Are the dream thieves two vampires, or two souls trapped in different universes and sizes, in the words of this father-son Tolga?

Will You Come With Me?

A small story born in Berlin, the city that fools you with its liberal outlook and makes you feel that all the problems of patriarchy and gender inequality are solved there. But then you discover that things are still not so different from how they were in the dark days of the past.