
A woman protests police brutality at Istanbul's 2015 Pride Walk

Police storm Istanbul's Pride Walk in June of 2015


A woman protests police brutality at Istanbul's 2015 Pride Walk
Onur
Documentary, 90 minutes
Ongoing since 2015
Turkey & Germany
Cinematographer & Assistant Director
Since June of 2015, journalist Gözde Böcü and I have traveled to Istanbul to track a turning point in the LGBT rights movement in Turkey. On our first trip, with recent wins by the gay-friendly CHP party and losses by the ruling AKP party, we expected to tell of a hopeful story of progess for the country's queer community. Instead, the goverment shut down the annual "Pride Walk" with teargass, water cannons, and rubber bullets. This film aims to tell the story of this increasingly complex moment for one of the country's most misunderstood minority groups and follows their activism, and for some their asylum processes when they take the hard decision to leave.