And then Cigdem Mater stopped answering her texts. It is Monday, April 25,when the German filmmaker Adrian Figueroa suddenly can no longer reach theproducer with whom he has made two films. Her phone has been confiscated aftershe was just sentenced to 18 years in prison. Mater’s offense: thinking aboutfinancing a film about the Gezipark protests, in 2013 in Istanbul. In thecase, seven others, including a lawyer and an academic, are given the samesentence; the prominent philanthropist Osman Kavala is sentenced to life.
Together with Figueroa, Mater made the short film in 2020 Letters fromSilivri and in 2022 Dear Osman. The films are about Kavala, who has beendetained for more than five years. The films were shown on Wednesday at theGoethe Institute in Amsterdam, as a show of solidarity with Mater and theother prisoners. Figueroa was invited by fellow filmmakers who organized themeeting. The room was filled with about fifty culture lovers, stakeholders,friends and colleagues, mostly from Turkey.
Figueroa knew Kavala from previous film projects and had no doubts about whatthe subject of his film should be when he traveled to Istanbul in 2019 for aresidency, he says in Amsterdam. Under Mater’s leadership, a film plan wasdeveloped for Letters from Silivri , in which Kavala’s letters to theoutside world are read against the backdrop of a gentrification-strickenIstanbul suburb. Time stands still while Kavala muses on life, nature, theoutside world. He sees sparrows on the prison wall and a sporadic gull.
Read also: Not a shred of evidence, yet businessman Kavala has to go to jailfor life
Innocent people
In Dear Osman the perspective is reversed. Friends and family read lettersthey wrote to Kavala, with Mater’s office in Istanbul as the backdrop. Peoplestruggle for words about the injustice done to their beloved Osman, “rolemodel” in Mater’s words. Mater worked with Kavala on cultural exchangeprojects for the Anadolu Kültür he founded. Shortly after the release of thefilm, she, like him, would disappear behind bars.
Also in the room is Yigit Aksakoglu, who himself was imprisoned in anothercase around Kavala. He reminds those present that thousands of innocent peopleare being held in Turkey to “waste their time in a nonsensical way”. Aksakoglumanaged to flee to the Netherlands after he was released in 2019. The Erdoganregime is primarily responsible, he says, but the Dutch and German governmentsare equally responsible for the Turkey deal they made in 2016 to keep refugeesout of the EU. Approving nods from the room.
At the exit, the last word is up to Mater. In a letter printed on flyersdistributed during the IDFA documentary festival, she addresses her audiencefrom prison in Istanbul. “Your voice and support are tearing down the grayprison walls,” she writes. “I dream of the days when we can only talk about