Republic: The first steps of a country's struggle to stand up(1998)

Arada(de)

The story of three Turkish men. They all grew up in Switzerland and all got deported after various criminal offenses.

Beyond the Hill(tr)

In the quiet foothills of Turkey, Faik lives an isolated existence. When his second son brings his boys for a visit, Faik takes the opportunity to pontificate about the law of the land, as he sees it. He shares one unsolicited thought after the next, most particularly focusing on the elusive nomads whom he suspects have been trespassing on his property. The day and night wear on, and each member of the clan takes his turn entrusting the film's audience with his own dark secret.

Colorless Dream(tr)

Being surrounded by the dark political events in Kurdistan of Turkey at 1990’s as a child, Mirza cannot escape from being a victim of those devastating events that have been in existence for a long time. He is overclouded with deep misery and after his mother’s death, Mirza becomes a passive and introverted child who struggles with bad dreams. However, his life changes upon arrival of a guest named Mir Ahmed, with who develop friendship after Mir Ahmed’s persistent effort.

The Last Apostle: Journies in the Holy Land(en)

Dr. Mark Fairchild, world-renowned archaeologist, traces the hidden years of Saint Paul's life in the mountainous Turkish countryside of Rough Cilicia.

Trans*BUT — Fragments of Identity(tr)

Fragmentary perspectives on Human Rights and transgender (trans*) People in Turkey. What remains at the place where a murder happened? What constitutes trans* life? How to cope with daily violence and hatred? We begin to search for traces. We follow the tracks of resistance and survival. We are collectors of the expelled. We gather fragments of trans* lives inspired by texts of Nazim Hikmet, Foucault, Benjamin and Zeki Müren. Trans*BUT is a documental research study driven by the question: “What keeps you going when all else falls away?”

Öcalan and the Kurdish Question(fr)

Kurdistan, partitioned between Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria, could play a major role in a torn Middle East. But who are the Kurds? What influence do they have? Who exactly is Abdullah Öcalan, the leader of the Kurdistan Workers' Party? An enlightening investigation by Luis Miranda.

The Murderers Are Among Us(de)

After returning from a concentration camp, Susanne finds an ex-soldier living in her apartment. Together the two try to move past their experiences during WWII.

The Edge of Heaven(de)

The lives of six German-Turkish immigrants are drawn together by circumstance: An old man and a prostitute forging a partnership, a young scholar reconciling his past, two young women falling in love, and a mother putting the shattered pieces of her life back together.

38(tr)

Documentary on the massacres commited in the Dersim region in Turkey in 1937/38.

Afganistanbul(tr)

Giant(en)

Wealthy rancher Bick Benedict and dirt-poor cowboy Jett Rink both woo Leslie Lynnton, a beautiful young woman from Maryland who is new to Texas. She marries Benedict, but she is shocked by the racial bigotry of the White Texans against the local people of Mexican descent. Rink discovers oil on a small plot of land, and while he uses his vast, new wealth to buy all the land surrounding the Benedict ranch, the Benedict's disagreement over prejudice fuels conflict that runs across generations.

A Powerful Noise(en)

Bookended by call-to-action quotes from Margaret Mead and Mahatma Gandhi, this inspiring documentary follows three extraordinary women -- in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Mali, and Vietnam -- as they lead day-to-day battles against ignorance, poverty, oppression, and ethnic strife.

Köy(de)

KÖY (Turkish for village) is about the longing for home, for belonging and the freedom of the self. Three women from three generations are united by their Kurdish roots.

The Heavy Burden(ku)

AVDEL feeds his family with the salary of his old donkey, BOZO, who works in the waste department of the city of Mardin in Turkey. It is also home to his nephew, SALIH, who fled Syria because of the war. After BOZO’s “retirement”, Avdel must find a younger ass to continue to earn his salary. So traumatized by the war Salih returns to Syria to recover his.

Burning Days(tr)

With the mayoral election approaching, the newly-appointed state prosecutor of a small Turkish town suffering from a water supply crisis gradually descends into trouble after a young local woman is raped.

The First World War(en)

Produced by the Fox Movietone News arm of Fox Film Corporation and based on the book by Lawrence Stallings, this expanded newsreel, using stock-and-archive footage, tells the story of World War I from inception to conclusion. Alternating with scenes of trench warfare and intimate glimpses of European royalty at home, and scenes of conflict at sea combined with sequences of films from the secret archives of many of the involved nations.

Girls' War(fr)

As the forces of ISIS and Assad tear through villages and society in Syria and Northern Iraq, a group of brave and idealistic women are taking up arms against them—and winning inspiring victories. Members of “The Free Women’s Party” come from Paris, Turkish Kurdistan, and other parts of the world. Their dream: To create a Democratic Syria, and a society based on gender equality. Guns in hand, these women are carrying on a movement with roots that run 40 years deep in the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) in Turkey. GIRL’S WAR honors the legacy of Sakine Cansiz, co-founder of the PKK who was assassinated in Paris in 2013, and reflects on the sacrifices made by all of the women in the movement, who have endured jail, rape, war, and persecution in their quest to liberate their lives and sisters from male dominance. With scenes of solidarity, strength, and love amongst these brave women soldiers, GIRL'S WAR is a surprising story of Middle Eastern feminism on the front lines.

1958: Those Who Said No(fr)

On October 4, 2018, France celebrated the 60th anniversary of the Fifth Republic. It is a republic born in the throes of the Algerian War and one which—from the day it was founded by General de Gaulle until the presidency of a very Jupiterian Emmanuel Macron—has been assailed as a “Republican monarchy” by partisans of a more assertive parliamentarian state. By revisiting the struggle of those who dared oppose the new regime — only to suffer a crushing defeat on September 28, 1958, when they were barely able to garner 20% of the vote against the constitutional text — this film shines a powerful new light on the origins of the Fifth Republic and its consequences for the next 60 years. It is a constitutional debate that planted the seeds for a complete upheaval of the French political landscape, on the left in particular, and set the country in motion toward what would be called the Union of the Left.

Byzance(en)

Byzance uses a text by Stefan Zweig to describe the Ottoman conquest of the city in 1453. Before he turned to feature filmmaking in 1968 with Naked Childhood, Pialat worked on a series of short films, many of them financed by French television. Byzance is one of Pialat’s six Turkish shorts.

Istanbul(fr)

All of Pialat's Turkish films are uniquely interested in the country — especially Istanbul — as it was, not just as it is at the precise moment that Pialat is filming it. History informs these films in a big way, with the voiceover narration (which incorporates excerpts from various authors) introducing tension between the images of the modern-day city and the descriptions of incidents from its long and rich history. Istanbul is probably the most conventional documentary of Pialat's Turkish series, providing a general profile of the titular city, its different neighborhoods, and the different cultures and ways of living that coexist within its sprawling borders. As the other films in the series also suggest, Pialat sees Turkey, and Istanbul in particular, as a junction point between Europe and the East, between the old and the new, between history and modernity.