SAF

Ali Vatansever shot his second feature film in Istanbul's Fikirtepe district where entire districts are being torn down to make way for gigantic residential complexes. The vacated houses are temporarily occupied by refugees from Syria. They not only compete with the residents, who are about to be thrown out, but also with all kinds of groups at the lower end of the social ladder for the few, often poorly paid jobs as well as for the limited living space. Many of them have lost their homes or are on the verge of doing so. And the same goes for the activists in the self-help groups, who are resisting the radical change of their neighbourhood – and, in turn, exerting pressure on those who do not show solidarity with them.

“It is not the city that is changing, but us, its inhabitants,” says the director about his film’s protagonists. The pressure is increasing as well as the resentment. Colleagues become competitors and neighbours turn into blackmailers. And right in the thick of it is the good-natured Kamil who creeps off secretly to go to work. A record of social life “at the very bottom”. BB