Our filmmaker friend Çiğdem Mater, has been in prison since April 25, 2022. We don’t want anyone to forget the injustice she is being subjected to. She was accused of thinking about making a film. To keep the awareness about this case alive and remind the world public of the injustice faced by all Gezi trial prisoners we are starting a special column dedicated to Çiğdem. We want to show that we continue to think and dream about making films. This column called Dream Pool is now open to contributions.
Our filmmaker friend Çiğdem Mater, who took part in the production of many films including Majority (Çoğunluk, 2010), Sivas (2014), Dust Cloth (Toz Bezi, 2015), Human Flow (2017), and Burning Days (Kurak Günler, 2022), has been in prison since April 25, 2022. Her case was part of the Gezi Trial, and she was sentenced to 18 years in prison for allegedly making a documentary about the protests, which was actually never realized.
Having spent almost two years in prison, Çiğdem’s name is likely to go down in Turkish history as the person who has been imprisoned for the longest period of time solely and directly for filmmaking activities. During the trial, even meetings she held or planned to hold at the Sarajevo and Yerevan Film Festivals—these most casual filmmaking activities—were construed as criminal. Another historical significance of Çiğdem’s sentence is that a film that has not been made –a documentary that does not exist– was considered as evidence against her. The fact that an unproduced documentary has been used as evidence against Çiğdem deepens the injustice against her. This situation poses a substantial threat to the future of freedom of thought and expression in cinema, imperiling imagination and creativity itself.
We don’t want anyone to ever forget the injustice that Çiğdem is subjected to and the absurdity of the crime that has been attributed to her. To keep the awareness about this case alive we are starting a special column dedicated to Çiğdem in our outlet www.altyazi.net. This column will be open to contributions from anyone who dreams of making films or even dreams about how films could have been different.
The below examples may give an idea about the kinds of articles we would like to include in this column:
- An idea for a movie you dream of making, a movie you want to make, a movie you might want to make (even if you don’t actually make movies and never will),
- A movie you couldn’t make or a scene of a movie you couldn’t shoot,
- A movie you wish someone would make (you wish a certain director would make a certain film),
- A movie scene that reminds you of Çiğdem,
- A scene from a movie you have seen that you would like to change (like imagining a different ending for a movie),
- Displacements such as imagining a character in a movie differently, or imagining a character from one movie in another movie,
- A movie you saw in a dream,
- A movie that you imagine being shot by another director, in another place or time, with other actors, in another style or genre.
It is certainly possible to diversify these examples. The most important thing for us is to keep dreaming about movies together with Çiğdem.
If you would like to contribute to the column, we kindly ask you to send an email to this address with your article attached: [email protected]
The length of the articles will be approximately 2500-3000 characters (with spaces). If you have any suggestions regarding writers you think might want to contribute to this column, please let us know. You can also directly forward this email to anyone you think might be interested in contributing. The articles will be collected in a pool and will be published gradually.
In solidarity,
Altyazı Cinema Association
For more detailed information about Çiğdem’s and other Gezi Trial prisoners, check out the article The Story Behind A Poster: A Film That Was Never Made.
