Kazım Öz: Once Upon A Time
A large and poor Kurdish family travels, as always, from their hometown of Batman to the vicinity of the capital city, Ankara, to grow lettuce as hired hands. The film Once Upon a Time gives almost a complete lecture on growing a lettuce, starting from its seed to its becoming a salad – an astonishing work on the story, the struggle, the hard work behind each fruit and vegetable we feast on.
An estimated 1 million people in Turkey work as hired hands in agriculture – a form of vast exploitation of labour. They work without any insurance whatsoever and are paid extremely low wages. Most of them are Kurdish and, to top it all, underage. It is art against the sharp class struggle that continues to-date, against new ways of colonialism and against people alienated from what they produce and consume. Art should continue to be the conscience of humanity. – Kazım Öz
Afterwards talk with Kazım Öz, Ayşe Erkmen and Grit Lemke
Political and social upheavals in Turkey have decisively changed working conditions for artists, scientists and journalists. In the special programme "You Want Kilims, But I Do Films – Art and Culture in Turkey", the Akademie der Künste invites representatives from various cultural sectors to present their practice.
On 11 June, Banu Karaca, sociocultural anthropologist, reports on the censorship in the arts in Turkey.
On 4 July, Aslı Özarslan’s documentary Dil Leyla recounts the story of Leyla from Bremen, who became mayor of the Kurdish city Cizre at the age of 26.
In cooperation with taz.gazete.
With the friendly support of the Gesellschaft der Freunde der Akademie der Künste (Society of Friends of the Academy of Arts).