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Documentaries from Türkiye - Out-of-Competition Selection
The Last Nest
Hasan Hüseyin Alkan
"Son Yuva" (The Last Nest) tells the story of Ahmet Karakaya, a shepherd in Anatolia facing the harsh impact of the climate crisis. Torn between leaving his homeland or staying to fight for it, Ahmet must make a difficult choice. His struggle reflects the profound and universal disruptions caused by climate change, as well as the resilience required to face an uncertain future.

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.

International Feature Film Competition
The Mission
Gaza Collective
The film follows the internationally renowned British nerve surgeon, Dr Mohammed Tahir as he returns to Gaza for his third medical aid mission. Dr Tahir’s medical team risk their lives to capture footage of his work amidst the carnage of Gaza’s operating rooms. Bound by the impartiality of their oaths, Dr Tahir and his team are the only neutral and reliable witnesses to the genocide. The unique footage they capture is a historic testimony to the grotesque reality of a genocide filmed in real time.

Special Film Screenings
Bellekvari: KuirFest’in Sözlü Tarihi
Asya Leman, Çağla Sumru
Ankara KuirFest transforms its 14-year history of resistance and solidarity into a queer memory space through its founders, volunteers, and artists. Despite increasing bans, the festival's continued existence as a form of cultural resistance lies at the heart of the documentary. The film makes visible both the personal and collective dimensions of queer existence by declaring, ‘We are here, we remember, we resist.’ Memory-like; a queer memory laboratory, a solidarity manifesto, and a living archive built with hope in defiance of every ban.

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
Trains
Maciej Drygas
TRAINS is a found-footage documentary composed entirely of archive footage and sound design that creates a collective portrait of people in 20th century Europe, capturing their hopes, desires, dramas and tragedies. A train compartment is a place where people are taken out of their everyday context for a while. Sometimes the journey is accompanied by the hope that something will change in our lives upon reaching the destination, or conversely, by a stark absence of hope. And yet the history of the 20th century unfolds in railway carriages in a repetitive refrain. Every few years, hauntingly similar scenes play out in railway stations around the world: carriages full of men leaving for war, only to return wounded or as casualties. This cycle is followed by an exodus of civilians, evacuees mingling with prisoners of war returning from camps, and soldiers of victorious armies leading the defeated, until ordinary passengers reappear at stations.

Documentaries from Türkiye
Block E, No. 5
Çağla Gillis
Çağla moves to Austria for university, facing the loneliness of a temporary dormitory, a liminal space that shapes her emotional journey. Meanwhile, her family in Istanbul struggles with the uncertainty and frustration of living in a rented apartment. Their home, demolished due to aggressive urban policies under the guise of earthquake risk prevention, remains incomplete for years. Through intimate yet online conversations, they share their longing for belonging, the weight of waiting, and the mundane tasks of daily life. In these cold, fractured spaces, time seems to blur, and memories echo as voices.

International Short Film Competition
Maestro’s hands
Aleksey Barykin
He has amazing hands. With the most delicate gestures he directs a symphony orchestra. He worked with great people: Maya Plisetskaya, Rodion Shchedrin, Mstislav Rostropovich. He conducted at the Bolshoi Theater, the Bavarian Ballet, the Royal Swedish Opera. One of the best conductors in the world, Renat Salavatov shares the secrets of his mastery.

Özel Film Gösterimleri
Bir Ömür Deniz
Ahmet Özkan, Veyis Polat
This film views the sea not as a landscape, but as a living space. Here, the sea is not a romantic backdrop; it is a life woven with sweat, patience and repetition.
We approach Mavişehir Fishermen's Shelter not as a place, but as a memory.
This harbour, whose location has changed with the filling of the shores, bears the traces of over a century of labour. Against concrete, time and transformation, we defend the continuity of the relationship established with the sea.
This manifesto aims to make the great stories of small boats visible.
The labour of fishermen who set sail in boats less than seven metres long is a form of living knowledge that is in danger of being forgotten in the shadow of industrial production. We stand against the loss of this knowledge.
Repeating the mending of nets, the threading of needles, the setting out to sea before dawn... Because repetition here is not ordinary; it is resistance. This order, re-established every day, is an expression of the ancient covenant between man and the sea.
While telling the story of the fishermen, this film focuses on silence, modesty, and the power of collective production. It sees accepting what the sea provides as a virtue.
We take on the responsibility of photography, the camera, and witnessing. We advocate not just looking, but seeing; not just recording, but understanding.
A Lifetime at Sea is not an elegy for the past; it is a mark left for the future.
As long as this way of life built with the sea continues, cultural memory will also continue to live on.
Some lives are not written on land, but in the wake of the waves.

Belgesel Fotoğraf Gösterimleri
Mahalleme Dokunma (With the Director in Attendance)
Emine Kart
Let me tell you a bit about the neighbourhood we didn't want to touch. 100th Year, Workers' Blocks Neighbourhood.
Built for workers, squatters have been living there for years. Thousands of buildings have sprung up around it, glass towers, shopping centres, mosque projects offering donation opportunities on credit card instalments, demolitions, constructions, bars and barricades. We didn't want this; we deserved better. The year was 2013... The whole country was united around three or five trees. The wind from those trees enveloped a student and retired neighbourhood in Ankara.
Do you know what we wanted?
We didn't want them to build that road separating the school from the neighbourhood. We didn't want them to cut down the forest that was home to all kinds of trees and animals. We wanted to throw in your faces every day the image of the workers and women your system killed, and those you slaughtered in the name of labour, peace and democracy, erasing them the very next day. We wanted a tree planted, a field we cultivated together, a garden where we could come together and tend to the crops. We wanted a patch of land open to labour and sustenance, with no lock on its gate.

Documentaries from Türkiye
Toprağın Hatırası
Didem Tütüncü
"The Memory of the Soil" takes viewers on a journey from İzmir's ancient past to the present, exploring the vineyards and the cultural heritage of Buca. This story, spanning from Levantine mansions to contemporary producers, reveals that grapes are not merely a fruit; they symbolize time, memory, and collective consciousness. From harvest rituals to winemaking traditions, from cherished memories to today's hopes, the documentary makes visible a culture deeply rooted in the soil of İzmir.

International Short Film Competition
Forty Days Road
Ali Ziani
In Forty Days Road, two colleagues (Ali and Ian) set out on a captivating journey across Egypt to trace the long route of camels traveling from Sudan to a market near Cairo. Along the way, they uncover the tough conditions of transport and join the camels on a 24-hour journey from the Sudanese border to one of the biggest Egyptian camel market near Cairo.

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.
...
'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.

Special Film Screenings
Los Pasaroz Sefaradis (Yönetmenlerin Katılımıyla)
Rose Modiano, Alberto Modiano
The Jews who arrived in Ottoman lands 530 years ago brought many cultures with them. Naturally, this included their language. Over time, this language blended with other cultures to form a new, unique language called “Judeo Espagnol”. Although it is in danger of being forgotten, the older generation continues to preserve it in areas where they live together, primarily in Izmir and Istanbul.
The documentary is about the Los Pasharos Sefaradis Group, Kula 930, and many other Jewish musicals that have emerged over more than 30 years, the formation of the group of four people, and the concerts they have given.
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