Two videos with an “inside” perspective towards the ongoing Boğaziçi Resistance, which ignited in the early days of 2021, following the various university bodies’ refusal of university rector’s undemocratic promotion. While Osman Baran Özdemir looks back at his personal archive of the first nine months of the resistance in Atlas; In Witness, H. Işık creates space in the campus for five Boğaziçi activists’ overlooked feelings during the protests.
Sreening Date 19 May 2022, 19:00 *
YouTube channel Altyazı Cinema Magazine
* Atlas and Witness will be streamed via two separate YouTube links at the same screening date and time. At 19:30 there will be a live talk session with both directors, Osman Baran Özdemir and H. Işık.
Atlas
12 minutes / 2022 / Turkish (with English subtitles)
Director / Camera /Editing Osman Baran Özdemir
Sound mix Alper Çağan
Watch it here
“Atlas focuses on remembering Boğaziçi University students’ movement, which started on 4 January 2021 and spread beyond campus, joining forces with other actions, through the archive that consists of videos I took during the first nine months of the resistance. As we record, to document the discourse of the protests and the abuse of rights that took place, our personal experience and daily life also becomes a part of these documents. On the other hand, when these recordings become public, what they display might not match with our memories or words. Can we fill in the gaps of the archive’s politically driven memory and our own recollections? Can the mechanical quality of an archive and the associations of human memory unite? Can one observe themselves through an archive they created?” – Osman Baran Özdemir
Witness
7 minutes / 2022 / Turkish (with English subtitles)
Director / Camera / Editing H. Işık
Sound Mix Alper Çağan
English subtitles Deniz İnal
Watch it here
“Witness came out during a period of waking up to different images of violence everyday while the act of recording and distributing these same images was tried to be illegalized. It is an attempt to create a horizontal gaze and bear witness through an emotional read of the resistance that spread into various parts of our lives. As we listen to the emotions of five Boğaziçi activists, which they held back to “avoid harming the resistance itself”, we accompany a calm yet anxious walk through the two campus sites; seemingly free of violence, yet have become spaces of violence for many people at Boğaziçi. Even though we only see glimpses of recorded physical violence, this video aims to rethink the continuity of violence in daily life and all its various forms, together with a space of affectivity.” – H. Işık
