Intent to Destroy: Death, Denial & Depiction

Trans*BUT — Fragments of Identity

April 2015 •Turkish

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?”

Es geht um Alles

May 2008 •German

The Last Apostle: Journies in the Holy Land

January 2020 •English

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

From Atatürk to Erdoğan: Building a Nation

October 2019 •French

Turkey's history has been shaped by two major political figures: Mustafa Kemal (1881-1934), known as Atatürk, the Father of the Turks, founder of the modern state, and the current president Recep Tayyıp Erdoğan, who apparently wants Turkey to regain the political and military pre-eminence it had as an empire under the Ottoman dynasty.

Architects of Denial

October 2017 •English

Though both the historical and modern-day persecution of Armenians and other Christians is relatively uncovered in the mainstream media and not on the radar of many average Americans, it is a subject that has gotten far more attention in recent years.

Nothing to be Afraid of

October 2019 •English

Ever since the war in Nagorno-Karabakh, the still disputed territory is contaminated by landmines. This documentary follows five female de-miners on their risky job.

Make Turkey Great Again

April 2025 •Catalan

Outliving Shakespeare

November 2025 •Armenian

In a decaying Soviet-era retirement home, a vibrant group of elders cling to life by staging Shakespeare. Yet loneliness lingers beyond the theater’s doors, until drama begins to blur with reality.

The First World War

November 1934 •English

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.

Köy

April 2022 •German

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 Armenian Genocide

March 2005 •French

More than one million Armenians perished between 1915 and 1916 in massacres or brutal deportation programs. Turkey still denies it ever happened. Laurence Jourdan examines massacres of Armenians in the decades leading up to the mass murder, and the geopolitical situation both before and after the genocide. Contemporaneous reports and documents written by Western diplomats stationed in the Ottoman Empire describe the methods used and the deportation routes. These accounts are mixed with personal stories from the living survivors and archive footage from Ottoman authorities.

Remake, Remix, Rip-Off: About Copy Culture & Turkish Pop Cinema

April 2019 •German

Turkey in the 1960s and 1970s was one of the biggest producers of film in the world. In order to keep up with the demand, screenwriters and directors were copying scripts and remaking movies from all over the world. This documentary visits the fastest working directors, the most practical cameramen and the most hardheaded actors to have a closer look into the country's tumultuous history of movie making.

The Seasons

January 1975 •Russian

The last collaboration of Artavazd Peleshian and cinematographer Mikhail Vartanov is a film-essay about Armenia's shepherds, about the contradiction and the harmony between man and nature, scored to Vivaldi's Four Seasons.

Aghet

April 2010 •German

2010 documentary film on the Armenian Genocide by the Young Turk government of the Ottoman Empire during World War I. It is based on eyewitness reports by European and American personnel stationed in the Near East at the time, Armenian survivors and other contemporary witnesses which are recited by modern German actors.

12 September: Coup Diary

November 1998 •Turkish

Turkish democracy got over May 27 and March 12 and set off again, but the storm did not subside, and the mutual reckoning was not over. On the contrary, new fronts were opened in the country and blood began to flow like a gutter. Finally, on September 12, there was a knock on the door again. Those who came that day changed everything, everything. Nothing will ever be the same again

12 Mart: Gripes

April 1994 •Turkish

Revolutionaries passed before the streets of the 1960s on the road to democracy. Then the youth with the victory songs, the workers with the rebel flags, the rightists, the leftists and the putschists again. The country spent 12 years in the grip of the revolution and in the end all roads came to the same crossroads. Ankara was restless in the minutes when the ousted prime minister of the Democratic Party, Adnan Menderes, was hanged. The news of Menderes' execution had not yet come. There was an anxious wait in the houses. Ears were on the radio. Everyone was wondering what happened in Imrali. In the Assembly, the National Unity Committee was in a meeting. They were also trying to learn the fate of Menderes. Suddenly, news came that EP Chairperson Ragıp Gümüşpala and Secretary General Şinasi Osman wanted to meet with the committee urgently. The committee members did not break the request of their former commander Gümüşpala and made an appointment for 14:30...

12 Mart: Colonel

March 1994 •Turkish

In the words of those days, "The first parliament of the Second Republic opened in its new building at 15:00 on a Wednesday. At that moment, the National Unity Committee, which had been ruling the country since 27 May, vanished into history. Now there was an Assembly and a Senate. The old Members of the Committee of National Unity had been "senators of course" for life. The country was finally getting its parliament again after a year and a half hiatus. After many painful days and nights, the biggest share in this success belonged to İsmet İnönü...

Return to Khodorciur—Armenian Diary

January 1986 •Italian

Raphael, Yervant Gianikian's father, survived the Armenian genocide in 1915 in Eastern Turkey. In April 1988, while living in Venice, he sat for his son's camera and read an excerpt from his memoirs, translated from Armenian into Italian.

Girls' War

March 2016 •French

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.

Truth to Power

April 2020 •English

The Grammy-winning lead singer of System of a Down, Serj Tankian helps to awaken a political revolution on the other side of the world, inspiring Armenia's struggle for democracy through his music and message.