Aylin Kuryel

Heads and Tails chronicles the curious hair trade between Turkey and Israel. Two Turkish-Israeli women, Coya and Sima, get the tails of hair from male hair traders in Turkey and sell them to wig makers in Tel Aviv, Ramat Gan and Bnei Brak. Orthodox Jewish women cover their heads with the wigs made of the hair that once belonged to women in Anatolia. In this journey, the hair is turned into a commodity, a means of living and source of beauty, becomes kosher, while the one who carefully grows the hair becomes rather invisible.

Sleeping disorders are omnipresent in this day and age. In this desktop diary, a resident of Amsterdam cannot sleep, absorbed by the genocides and atrocities being broadcast in real time.

March 8 with Stella takes place in an apartment overlooking one of the streets where, during the 21st Feminist Night March in Istanbul, women find each other despite all obstacles. Fragmented conversations with Stella Ovadia, one of the founding figures of post-1980 feminist struggle in Turkey, on feminism, socialism, minority identity, and political life become charged by chants and sirens rising from outside. As the camera moves outside to join the protest, the memory of past struggles and the political action of the present appear within the same frame.

Kawa Nemir is like a walking dictionary of the Kurdish language. He flees Turkey and takes refuge at Anne Frank's former house in Amsterdam. Will he be able to finish the translation of Ulysses and publish it?

Cemile and Sezgin have been keeping on writing their love story on walls and streets of Izmir for five years. Dominik Street residents have a myriad of theories on who these mysterious people are. This film is about urban surfaces and urban legends.

Welcome Lenin chronicles the story of the Lenin statue, most likely thrown away after the collapse of the Soviet Union, traveled for almost two years in the Black Sea to be eventually put “under protection” in a dusty storage room in a municipality building in a remote village in Turkey.

Heads and Tails chronicles the curious hair trade between Turkey and Israel. Two Turkish-Israeli women, Coya and Sima, get the tails of hair from male hair traders in Turkey and sell them to wig makers in Tel Aviv, Ramat Gan and Bnei Brak. Orthodox Jewish women cover their heads with the wigs made of the hair that once belonged to women in Anatolia. In this journey, the hair is turned into a commodity, a means of living and source of beauty, becomes kosher, while the one who carefully grows the hair becomes rather invisible.

Heads and Tails chronicles the curious hair trade between Turkey and Israel. Two Turkish-Israeli women, Coya and Sima, get the tails of hair from male hair traders in Turkey and sell them to wig makers in Tel Aviv, Ramat Gan and Bnei Brak. Orthodox Jewish women cover their heads with the wigs made of the hair that once belonged to women in Anatolia. In this journey, the hair is turned into a commodity, a means of living and source of beauty, becomes kosher, while the one who carefully grows the hair becomes rather invisible.

Heads and Tails chronicles the curious hair trade between Turkey and Israel. Two Turkish-Israeli women, Coya and Sima, get the tails of hair from male hair traders in Turkey and sell them to wig makers in Tel Aviv, Ramat Gan and Bnei Brak. Orthodox Jewish women cover their heads with the wigs made of the hair that once belonged to women in Anatolia. In this journey, the hair is turned into a commodity, a means of living and source of beauty, becomes kosher, while the one who carefully grows the hair becomes rather invisible.

Sleeping disorders are omnipresent in this day and age. In this desktop diary, a resident of Amsterdam cannot sleep, absorbed by the genocides and atrocities being broadcast in real time.

Sleeping disorders are omnipresent in this day and age. In this desktop diary, a resident of Amsterdam cannot sleep, absorbed by the genocides and atrocities being broadcast in real time.

March 8 with Stella takes place in an apartment overlooking one of the streets where, during the 21st Feminist Night March in Istanbul, women find each other despite all obstacles. Fragmented conversations with Stella Ovadia, one of the founding figures of post-1980 feminist struggle in Turkey, on feminism, socialism, minority identity, and political life become charged by chants and sirens rising from outside. As the camera moves outside to join the protest, the memory of past struggles and the political action of the present appear within the same frame.

March 8 with Stella takes place in an apartment overlooking one of the streets where, during the 21st Feminist Night March in Istanbul, women find each other despite all obstacles. Fragmented conversations with Stella Ovadia, one of the founding figures of post-1980 feminist struggle in Turkey, on feminism, socialism, minority identity, and political life become charged by chants and sirens rising from outside. As the camera moves outside to join the protest, the memory of past struggles and the political action of the present appear within the same frame.

Kawa Nemir is like a walking dictionary of the Kurdish language. He flees Turkey and takes refuge at Anne Frank's former house in Amsterdam. Will he be able to finish the translation of Ulysses and publish it?

Kawa Nemir is like a walking dictionary of the Kurdish language. He flees Turkey and takes refuge at Anne Frank's former house in Amsterdam. Will he be able to finish the translation of Ulysses and publish it?

Kawa Nemir is like a walking dictionary of the Kurdish language. He flees Turkey and takes refuge at Anne Frank's former house in Amsterdam. Will he be able to finish the translation of Ulysses and publish it?

Cemile and Sezgin have been keeping on writing their love story on walls and streets of Izmir for five years. Dominik Street residents have a myriad of theories on who these mysterious people are. This film is about urban surfaces and urban legends.

Cemile and Sezgin have been keeping on writing their love story on walls and streets of Izmir for five years. Dominik Street residents have a myriad of theories on who these mysterious people are. This film is about urban surfaces and urban legends.

Welcome Lenin chronicles the story of the Lenin statue, most likely thrown away after the collapse of the Soviet Union, traveled for almost two years in the Black Sea to be eventually put “under protection” in a dusty storage room in a municipality building in a remote village in Turkey.

In 2024, Amsterdam became one of many cities where people mobilized against the systematic destruction of Palestinian lives and infrastructures. In the midst of the ongoing genocide in Gaza, students and staff organized encampments, teach-ins, and demonstrations, calling on the University of Amsterdam and other institutions to sever ties with Israeli entities. Class Outside is a collective video diary emerging from this moment. Filmed during the May 2024 student encampments and subsequent actions, it captures everyday moments of resistance, solidarity, and clashes, exploring a landscape filled with bodies, slogans, cobblestones, and dreams.

In 2016, hundreds of academics signed a petition in Turkey, asking the state to put an end to violence inflicted upon Kurdish people. Academics for Peace have been criminalized and put on trial with the charge of terrorist propaganda. A Defense portrays one of the Academics for Peace while preparing for her upcoming appearance in court in 2019. A psychodrama is put on stage in a house, where the person is both the state, the judge, the academic and the cook. It’s a self-portrait on the violence and absurdity of the ways in which the state sneaks into the house of an academic, forcing her to adjust her words, body and gestures.

March 8, 2020: A Memoir is a multi-voiced desktop essay attempting to find the blind spots of ’Touristic Cameras’ looking at Taksim Square during the Feminist Night March. A child playing with a red balloon, youngsters dancing on the street, people taking photos... Time traveling via screen recordings, this is a memoir of the last demonstration in Istanbul before the pandemic.

No synopsis available yet.

Desktop images, letters, text messages, interviews and CCTV footage, this aesthetically eclectic, politically daring collection of films by Altyazı Fasikül: Free Cinema stresses the need for criticality in times of censorship and repression.

No synopsis available yet.