The Buffett Institute for Global Affairs’ Keyman Modern Turkish Studies Program hosted a screening of the documentary “Dargeçit,” followed by a discussion with director Berke Baş on Thursday afternoon.
The event marked the first documentary screening in a new series titled “Witness, Archive, Evidence: Documentary Cinema and the Politics of Memory in Turkey,” which examines how violence and displacement are lived and disputed through institutions and everyday life.
“Dargeçit,” which translates to “hold still” in English, follows the legal struggle of the families seeking justice for the seven people who were forcibly disappeared in 1995 in the predominantly Kurdish district of Dargeçit in southeast Turkey. It was released in 2024 and won Best Documentary at the Istanbul Film Festival.
The documentary chronicles the final five years of the legal case, which began in 2015, as families repeatedly returned to court amid the looming threat of statutes of limitations.
In the post-screening Q&A, Baş said her minimalist filmmaking style — relying on a single camera and microphone — aligned with the realities of working under Turkey’s restrictive political environment.
“It’s very, very difficult to film in today’s conditions in Turkey, so we had to be very small,” Baş said. “We had to be invisible.”
While Baş said she entered the project with prior experience filming in the region and an awareness of the subject, she emphasized that the documentary-making process demanded extensive research.
However, Baş said the majority of that research “took place with the camera in hand” as she filmed the families in real time.
“It was important that we witnessed the fight, their struggle in the courtrooms or outside, firsthand,” Baş said. “It was more of an observational style, with a lot of listening on our part to learn, so we really put ourselves in the position of an audience.”
Keyman postdoctoral fellow Mert Koçak, who organized the event, said “Dargeçit” was chosen to open the series because it raises foundational questions about how violence is remembered.
Specifically, Koçak said the documentary situates the families’ legal struggle within broader debates over identity politics in Turkey.
“It opens up this huge discussion about how to memorialize something that is erased by the state and by state officials,” Koçak said.
Rather than reconstructing the disappearances through archival material and vintage footage, Baş said the documentary adopts an observational style focused on listening and witnessing.
Baş said this approach was crucial to documenting the families’ ongoing struggle rather than treating the violence as a closed historical event.
Third-year English Ph.D. candidate and attendee María José Cornejo said the event resonated beyond Turkey.
“I come from a part of the world that also has extrajudicial executions, so it was very interesting, heartbreaking, of course, to see how the situation pops up everywhere and the dynamics are so similar,” Cornejo said.
Future screenings will take place in February and March, featuring documentaries on boarding schools designed for Kurdish assimilation, Kurdish villages and the Dom population of Turkey.
Beyond learning about Turkish politics, Koçak said they hope the screening’s attendees are able to reflect on similar forms of state violence and resistance in their own countries.
“We are seeing increasing state violence everywhere, and documenting it, bringing it to justice, creating a system where we will hold these kinds of state oppressions accountable, is really important,” Kocak said. “I hope many people will be able to relate their own contexts with what’s happening on screen.”
Email: [email protected]
Related Stories:
— Researchers discuss the state of Kurds in Turkey and their portrayal in U.S. media
— Scholars discuss archival justice and preservation in MENA region
