Turkish cinema, despite being held back by economic and political constraints, looks poised for a global breakthrough this year. Its milestone Berlin 2026 contingent — comprising three feature film premieres, two of which are competing for the Golden Bear — kicks off the campaign.
For years, Turkey’s government, headed by authoritarian President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has been muzzling filmmakers’ voices through censorship laws and state funding constraints on projects that didn’t seem to toe the political line. On top of that, the value of the Turkish lira has been plunging to record lows as inflation rises, which in turn impacts local production costs.
But Turkish directors, who often mount their productions outside the country, “Have lots of energy; they never give up” says former Antalya Film Festival artistic director Başak Emre, who now heads the Istanbul Film Festival’s revamped co-production platform Meetings on the Bridge.
Spearheading Turkey’s Berlin contingent are the two competition titles, “Yellow Letters” and “Salvation” (pictured above), both by name auteurs who were able to find financing in Europe and elsewhere. The directors certainly didn’t shy away from politics in their films.
Berlin-born İlker Çatak is at the Berlinale with “Yellow Letters,” which, unlike his last film — the Oscar-nominated, Germany-set “The Teachers’ Lounge” — takes place entirely amid political repression in Turkey, even though it was shot in Germany. The film stars Turkish actors Özgü Namal (Derya) and Tansu Biçer (Aziz) as an artist couple whose marriage implodes after they lose their jobs due to their political views, reflecting the country’s reality.
Çatak is uncertain whether “Yellow Letters” will ever be released in Turkey’s cinemas. “That’s a big question mark,” he says. But the director also points out that if the culture ministry censors his film, “this will generate attention [for it] in its own right.”
Emin Alper says he was “blacklisted” from getting government funding for “Salvation” after making his 2022 drama “Burning Days,” which reflected rising authoritarian populism and mounting homophobia — and not just in his country. His latest work, which is set, and shot, in a remote Turkish mountain village, revolves on a land dispute rooted in the conflict over rights for Turkey’s Kurdish minority. It’s a potential political hot potato, but Alper is hopeful that “Salvation,” which has Turkish distribution attached, will make it past censors. He notes that tensions between the government and rebel Kurdish group PKK have eased, and “the atmosphere on that front is a bit more relaxed,” he says.
Also set in a Turkish village is sophomore director Banu Sıvacı’s more intimate 2026 Berlin Forum title “Hear the Yellow.” In the drama, a young woman named Suna returns to her parental home in a rural area “riven with cracks caused by drought,” that make it “as fragile as the relationships between the local people,” says the synopsis. Sıvacı, who debuted with “The Pigeon” in Berlinale Generation in 2018, was able to finance “Hear the Yellow” entirely in Turkey.
“There’s a new generation coming, and there’s kind of a burst of production, despite the difficulties,” says Alper.
Çatak agrees: “There is a tremendous amount of talent in Turkey and great stories coming out, which is often is the case in societies where there are lots of tensions.”
Indeed, there is a promising crop of finished films from prominent Turkish auteurs that will soon hit the festival circuit. Expect Yeşim Ustaoğlu’s long-gestating seventh feature, “Left Over,” a road movie about a poetess who leaves her Istanbul home to go back to her family roots, to surface as well a new doc that she’s made. Ustaoğlu broke out with 1999’s “Journey to the Sun,” which competed in Berlin.
Gürcan Keltek, who in 2024 made a splash in Locarno with atmospheric horror film “New Dawn Fades,” has completed “Horde,” which he shot during COVID lockdown. Ferit Karahan, who was at Berlin in 2021 with “Brother’s Keeper,” has picture-locked his “Djinn Wedding,” which looks at family’s fate over three generations.
Meanwhile, Turkey’s longtime Cannes darling Nuri Bilge Ceylan (“Winter Sleep”) will be back on set this year with a father-daughter drama (details are being kept under wraps). Kaan Müjdeci, who won the Grand Jury Prize at Venice in 2014 with “Sivas” and subsequently made “Iguana Tokyo” and the TV series “Hamlet,” will be back with “Dreamgirl.” The pic centers on a young Roma girl who escapes from a small town in Eastern Anatolia, where she is not welcome. And Berkun Oya, creator of hit Turkish shows “Ethos” and “Cici,” will shoot previously announced “Merci Charlotte,” starring Juliette Binoche as a French woman who adopts a Turkish boy.