Film on human rights in Turkey debuts Wednesday

ISTANBUL

The first publicly financed feature film on the subject of human rights in Turkey will premiere on Wednesday at the Istanbul Film Festival.

The film, named “Coastliners”, examines the theme of human rights through five different stories in short films by internationally acclaimed directors.

The film’s coordinator, Ekin Bozkurt Sener, told Anadolu Agency that the project was financed with European Union funds.

“Our goal is protecting and strengthening human rights, as well as contributing to the visibility of women’s rights across Turkey,” he said.

“This is the first time [in Turkey] one public institution has prepared a full-length art film related to human rights.”

The state’s National Human Rights Institution (NHRI) of Turkey, founded in 2012 to protect and promote human rights and prevent violations, supervised the film’s production.

Film director Erdem Tepegoz said the human rights cases in the film came from true stories in Turkey, but that they are not Turkey’s alone, but global problems.

He added, “Such issues as refugees, violations, surviving, and struggling for life are human rights cases and problems of the world.”

Tepegoz stressed that few films in Turkey explore human rights themes, and that Turkish government support to make a film to raise awareness of the issue is significant.

The film shows five different short stories: one concerns the personal effects of refugees washed ashore; the second is the peculiar story of a young man who was assaulted; the third tells of a mother and daughter who take refuge in a house when bombs sound on the Syrian border; the fourth tells of a hero in Istanbul trying to overcome obstacles; and the last story tells the spiritual journey of a pregnant woman trying to return to the hometown she was driven from.

The film will be screened at the Beyoglu Movie Theatre as part of the 35th Istanbul Film Festival (film.iksv.org).