"Ilker Catak's Yellow Letters and Emin Alper's Salvation, two politically outspoken films that examine Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan's autocratic regime, shared the top prizes at this year's Berlinale: the Golden Bear for Catak and Silver for Alper. These striking works share a lot more. Both titles are co-produced by Liman, an indie film company from Turkey."
"Nadir Operli, Salvation's producer, co-produced Yellow Letters alongside Enis Kostepen who produced and co-wrote Catak's film. Both in their mid-40s, they are key figures in the new wave of Turkish cinema that has risen from the ashes of Yesilcam, the national film industry body that collapsed in the late 1980s. Aesthetically bold yet accessible, and steeped in Turkey's rich tradition of dissent, their projects expose Turkey at a precarious moment of political repression and economic hardship."
"In its own way, this new wave embraces the legacy of Ylmaz Guney, the imprisoned and exiled Kurdish director whose masterpiece The Road won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1982. A military junta had run Turkey since 1980, and Guney dared break the silence about what that did to the country, particularly the Kurdish minority."
Turkish cinema experiences a resurgence through politically engaged filmmakers challenging the Erdogan regime. Ilker Catak's Yellow Letters and Emin Alper's Salvation won top prizes at the 2024 Berlinale, both produced by Liman, an independent Turkish production company. Producers Nadir Operli and Enis Kostepen, in their mid-40s, represent a new wave emerging from Yesilcam's collapse in the late 1980s. These aesthetically bold yet accessible films expose Turkey's political repression and economic hardship, inheriting the legacy of Kurdish director Yilmaz Guney, whose banned masterpiece The Road won the Palme d'Or in 1982. This contemporary movement reflects Turkey's shift from optimistic early 2000s toward increased political constraints.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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