Projects 2023

Hold Still

Berke Bas
A Kurdish lawyer fights for justice in today’s Turkey with families whose loved ones disappeared in 1995. Piercing the impunity shields seems impossible, but they don’t give up. Hold Still follows the Kurdish lawyer Erdal Kuzu and the relatives of the seven people who were forcibly taken during the height of Kurdish conflict in 1995 in Southeast Turkey. After years of struggle for truth and justice, the “Dargecit trial” finally started in 2015. The film moves from first to the final hearing in July 2022. Hold Still follows this emotional arc of hope, pessimism and persistence in the face of despair.

Berke Bas

Berke Bas is a producer and director who studied political sciences at Bogazici University, Istanbul and received her master’s degree in media studies at New School for Social Research, New York. Her films deal with Turkey’s pressing social and political issues as wide ranging as illegal migration (In Transit, 2005), women’s political rights (What a Beautiful Democracy!, 2008), Armenian orphans of 1915 (hush!/La Chanson de Nahide, 2009) and trials of manhood (Concrete Park, 2010). She is the co-director of the non-linear documentary Planet Galata: A Bridge in Istanbul, 2010. Her last film is Baglar (2016), co-directed with Melis Birder, and funded by Sundance Documentary Film Program.

General sponsor

Turkey

Working title:
Hold Still

Directed by:
Berke Bas

Start of production:
01.2018.

Estimated date of finalisation:
10.2023.