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GIOJA22
00:10:00
Stefano De Felici
-
Italy
A new skyscraper stands out against the sky amidst massive mirrored buildings and vertical forests, symbols of Milan’s new skyline. Alone, one man bravely scales the building, defying the concrete and glass bastions of new world finance. His act of civil disobedience at 500 feet in the sky makes people look up for a few hours and reflect on the meaning of the expression “stay human”.
Thursday, January 22, 2026
17:00
Fransız Kültür Merkezi
International Short Film Competition
Yazbek: A Portrait
Frederick Shelbourne, Lucy Andia
Yazbek: A Portrait recounts a Sergio's life, leading up to the moment he uncovers a box of his late father’s lost negatives. As he develops the photographs, Sergio reconnects with his father in ways he never expected, discovering new facets about the man and his legacy. Sergio reflects on how his father taught him not only the secrets of photography but also of life itself, shaping his understanding of the world through the lens. This film explores themes of memory, family, and the profound connection between art and life.
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'Yazbek: A Portrait' narra la vida de Sergio, hasta el momento en que descubre una caja con los negativos perdidos de su difunto padre. Mientras revela las fotografías, Sergio se reconecta con su padre de maneras que nunca imaginó, descubriendo nuevas facetas sobre el hombre y su legado. Sergio reflexiona sobre cómo su padre le enseñó no solo los secretos de la fotografía, sino también de la vida misma, moldeando su comprensión del mundo a través del lente. Esta película explora temas como la memoria, la familia y la profunda conexión entre el arte y la vida.
Student Documentaries from Türkiye
Since You've Been Gone
Ayşegül Ongun
A woman who lost her father follows the historical route that she and her father used to follow. During the journey, she tries to understand her own connection to the city. While she compares her father's Istanbul in his youth and today's city, she ironically conveys the problems such as unplanned urbanization, ecological distortions, and crowd. Throughout the journey she talks to her father, while she uses the city as a metaphor for remembrance and nostalgia in relation with grief and loss.
Documentaries from Türkiye
Radio, My Love (With the Director in Attendance)
Nazan Haydari, Özden Cankaya, Cem Hakverdi
Radio, My Love is an investigative documentary that frames radio broadcasting as an arena of struggle. The film revolves around the experiences of women who entered the profession in the 1970s by taking exams to join TRT, first established as an autonomous broadcasting institution. The documentary is based on the oral history project titled “Women Radio Broadcasters in the History of Turkey. It weaves together archival recordings with contemporary interviews, bringing voices from different eras together to reveal how these broadcasters shaped both the sound of radio and the cultural landscape of Turkey during a pivotal period.
Yönetmenlerin Katılımıyla
Songs of Fraternity
Çayan Demirel, Ayşe Çetinbaş
"Songs of Fraternity” is a feature-length project that tells the musical and political journey of the ‘Kardeş Türküler Project, which started within the Boğaziçi University Folklore Club in 1993… in a way a chronicle of“togetherness”, children, women, trees, rivers, a fraternity of cultures and languages that cannot be divided by borders. Not only languages, but history, culture, poetry, writers and artists meet on the stage: Hrant Dink, Neşet Ertaş, Reem Kelani, Sezen Aksu, Arto Tunçboyacıyan, Sayat Nova choir, the list goes on… So this movie brings forward for the first time the 30-year old story of Kardeş Türküler as they navigate and reflect with their music the political and social realities of the recent history of Turkey.
International Short Film Competition
The Stonemason’s Daughter
Arturo Franco
The film was shot around the place of O Fieiro, a small village of no more than twelve houses and nine inhabitants, among them Rosa. A ninety-year-old woman who dedicates her last years to watching the rain through the window. Her father was a canteiro, a house builder, before the reservoir changed everything. Rosa remembers how her father lifted the stones and the people transported them from one place to another.
It is shown as an abstract visual poem where the rain and the stones are the protagonists of the story Rosa tells us.
International Short Film Competition
Baghdad Graphic
D.K. Odessa
Based on fragments from a never finished graphic novel, Baghdad Graphic presents an unflinching account of an Iraqi journalist and his desperate effort to survive the invasion of his country. An intensely personal portrait of the costs of war.
International Feature Film Competition
Chanting of the Dunes
Mokhless Al-Hariri
Chanting of the Dunes has so far won over 40 awards and 20 nominations!
The film takes viewers on a dazzling journey through multiple countries and during momentous world events that extend from the Levant in the 1920s to the U.S. and China in the 1990s.
Chanting of the Dunes recounts the life of Wahbi Al-Hariri-Rifai who was an accomplished international artist, architect, archeologist, and author. It is told through the mixed perspective of his wife, Widad Marachi, who married him at the age of 15. The fascinating storyline is full of unexpected turns and is accompanied by a superb award-winning soundtrack.
The film is beautifully illustrated through hundreds of meticulously restored black/white and color archival photographs and original footage.
According to festival managers, the film exceeds all expectations and represents a new cinematographic genre between narrative feature and documentary. Many have called it “extraordinary, moving, mesmerizing, full of messages...”
Documentaries from Türkiye
It Was Nice to Meet You
Jehan Barbur, Güneş Kazdal
World Premiere: Antalya Film Festival Documentary Competition
This mid-length documentary follows Deniz (28) and Can (30), two siblings with SMA who are bedridden and live with the support of their mother, Aysel. Highlighting issues such as societal neglect, restricted rights, and equality, the film aims to raise awareness. After losing their home in the Maraş earthquake, the family now resides in a relative’s house in Alaçatı. Through five days of interviews and observations, the documentary sheds light on their lives and perspectives.
Documentaries from Türkiye
The Seasons Within Me
Sevda Doğan
I am a documentary filmmaker living with bipolar disorder. I have turned the camera toward myself and begun documenting the process of making my first feature film. Throughout this journey, bipolar disorder and the shifting conditions of my country have been my greatest challenges, while inner reflection and artistic creation have been my strongest sources of support. In this sense, the documentary offers a sincere companionship both to those on the path of self-discovery and to individuals going through similar experiences.
Special Film Screenings
Free Fish
Bisan Owda, Carolina Pereira
Free Fish — filmed entirely in Gaza during the ongoing genocide tells the story of two brothers separated by war and displacement, whose daily struggle to fish under blockade becomes an act of survival and resistance. Because in Gaza, even the sea is under siege. Fishing has become an act of defiance — and creation, an essential exercise of freedom.
Student Documentaries from Türkiye
Evara
Cansu Carlak
Evara, which means gift of God, deals with the cycle journey of our character who finds herself in the middle of the climate change
crisis in the conflict between city and nature. Based on the philosophy of second nature and social ecology, Evara is a critique consisting of questioning, resistance, observation and feelings and is reflected through performance art.
Best International Experimental Documentary Film
Under my Mother's Roof
Christian Abi Abboud
A film where fiction and reality collide; Richard and Kim decide to cowrite with the filmmaker, pieces of their future lives together. “Under my mother’s roof” is a portrait of a man who is facing his biggest fear; the diagnoses of his love with autism. A journey which will lead him back to his childhood biggest trauma,
the loss of his mother.
Best International Short Film
Sukande Kasáká | Ailing Land
Kamikia Kisedje, Fred Rahal
Kamikia and Lewaiki, from the Khĩsêdjê people, are forced to abandon their largest village after detecting pesticide contamination that poisons their land, rivers, and food. Surrounded by monocultures of soy, they fight to protect their culture, their families, and their territory, facing an invisible enemy that threatens their very existence.
International Feature Film Competition
Le chien qui boit le thé
Jean-Claude Moschetti Moschetti, Arnaud Nouvel
Le chien qui boit le thé, is a film that explores Beninese Voodoo as it is lived on a daily basis. It's a rare immersion in cults and ceremonies, in traditions shaped by men for men.
Populated by magical and supernatural creatures, voodoo enchants photographer Jean-Claude Moschetti, who for over 20 years has been making visible to the uninitiated a parallel world that is superimposed on reality.
The face of the Dog who drinks tea, he is the one who opens doors, knows secrets and codes. Neither an ethnologist nor a researcher, he is simply on a quest for magic. In his lens: mermaids smoking by the ocean, the dead dancing, a bird-woman spreading fear...
His studio is in the modest ghost convent of Affinon, his friend and Egungun dignitary. It was Egungun who initiated him into the secrets and sacred cults of the ancestors. But this year, their destinies take opposite paths: one rises to the sacred, the other is struck by a curse. Fate or destiny? Voodoo offers those who dare to step forward the chance to negotiate their path. But beware of the unwary: a vengeful pig is on the prowl, stalking evil.
Documentaries from Türkiye
Who Shot Jr.? (With the Director in Attendance)
Gül Abus Semerci
This documentary takes a closer look at the passionate fans of the Turkish TV series industry. It explores how fans feel so connected to the stories that they even influence actors’ lives or the script’s flow. Their passion leads to social media campaigns targeting writers and efforts to "save" favorite characters, reflecting their strong sense of belonging. Meanwhile, industry representatives’ comments on fans and the cold realities of their professional world add another striking layer. This contrast of admiration and distance paints a portrait of the series world and its fans.
International Feature Film Competition
I Just Keep Dancing
Natasha Fefelova, Galina Goldfeld
An American, a Japanese, a Canadian, a Frenchman and a Brazilian work as ballet dancers in very different Russian cities. The world around them collapses for reasons beyond their control, and the characters have to make the most difficult choice in their lives. A choice on which not only their career, but also their destiny depends.
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