editor's pick

10:34

İmdat (Help) is written, composed and arranged by Nazan Öncel. The song draws attention to femicides with its meaningful lyrics. Nazan Öncel thanked many people such as Nükhet Duru, Demet Evgar, Songül Öden, Deniz Çakır, Gaye Su Akyol, Tuba Ünsal, Sinan Kaynakçı, Orkun Tunç, Gülten Kaya, Tolga Akdoğan, Özlem Karakuş and Mor Dayanışma (Purple Solidarity) for their solidarity. In the video of the song, the photos of many killed women in Turkey such as Münevver Karabulut, Ceren Özdemir, Özgecan Aslan, Pınar Gültekin and Ece Çiçek are shown.

10:40

“I Know Why the Caged Bird sings” is the first of the autobiographical works by American writer Maya Angelou. The first in a seven-volume series sheds light on an inspiring biography of the writer. Maya Angelou was also a poet, actress, and playwright. In her book, she advises us to look at the world from the window of an unprotected little girl facing violence. The book chronicles Maya Angelou’s life from age three through age 16, recounting an unsettled and sometimes traumatic childhood that included rape and racism.

11:58

Ece Temelkuran’s book “Women Who Blow on Knots” takes us a journey in the Middle East. The book tells us the stories of four persevering women. As the world is changing, these women try to adapt themselves to it. They are sometimes alone, sometimes fall down but always stand up…

09:56

On her wedding night, Shirin is arrested for murdering the janitor of their home building. Hush! Girls Don't Scream is 2013 Iranian drama film about a woman on death row for killing a man. The film is a realistic film and it is about many issues such as women's self-defense, rape, and blackmail, and child abuse in Iran. It tells why women keep silent and why women are silenced. Shirin has a nightmarish childhood and she kills the man to not allow other girls to be victims. Shirin is sentenced to death.

08:53

Cecilia Krull is a Spanish singer. She is the singer of many TV series. She began her musical life when she was seven years old. She was born in a family that brings music into her veins. “My Life Is Going On” is the theme song for the “La Casa de Papel” series. She has had more than 200 million plays around the world for her song “My Life Is Going On”. She is one of the most important jazz singers.

11:32

“You Have the Right to Remain Fat” is a book written by Virgie Tovar, who was named one of the 50 most influential feminists in 2018 by Bitch Magazine. The book has been translated into Turkish and published by Güldünya publishing house. “I'm a 250-pound woman who decided to stop dieting because I wanted to stop waiting and start living,” writes Virgie Tovar in her book.

09:10

Nomadland is a 2020 American drama film written, edited, produced, and directed by Chloé Zhao. The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival and won the Golden Lion. It also won the People's Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival. It stars Frances McDormand as a woman who leaves her hometown, Nevada, after her husband dies and the sole industry closes down, to be “houseless” and travel around the United States. It received four nominations at the 78th Golden Globe Awards, winning Best Motion Picture – Drama and Best Director; in winning the latter award, Chloé Zhao became the second woman and the first Asian woman to do so.

10:25

Iranian Kurdish singer Yalda Abbasi is actually well known by music lovers in Turkey. She has held multiple concerts previously in Turkey and many music lovers watched her performances. She, who tells the pain, feelings, and daily lives of the Horosan Kurds in her songs, is a woman devoting her life to music. Yalda Abbasi lives in Tehran and continues her musical life actively in her country despite the pressures of the Iranian regime.

09:49

Bahman Ghobadi has made the silent screams of children growing up in a war environment heard by dedicating Turtles Can Fly to “all the innocent children in the world, the casualties of the policies of dictators and fascists.” The film tells us the stories of children, who grow up in minefield, earn a living by collecting and selling the mines in the region. Many of these children have lost limbs to landmines. Turtles Can Fly shows the war through the eyes of children. The film is set in the Kurdish refugee camp on the Iraq–Turkey border on the eve of the US invasion of Iraq and it is about refugee children. One of the children is thirteen-year-old Soran, known by the alias Kak Satellite. He is known for his installation of dishes and antenna for the villagers who are looking for news about Saddam Hussein. Then, we learn the stories of three children: Agirin, Riga, and Hengov.

08:36

Simone was a French writer, intellectual, existentialist philosopher, political activist, feminist, and social theorist. She was one of the women who laid the groundwork for the second wave and she is known for her most famous statement, “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman”. She was born on January 9, 1908. She studied mathematics at the Institut Catholique de Paris and literature and languages at the Institut Sainte-Marie. She was the youngest person ever to pass the agrégation exam. At the end of World War II, Simone Beauvoir and Sartre edited Les Temps modernes, a political journal which Sartre founded along with Maurice Merleau-Ponty and others. She used Les Temps Modernes to promote her own work and explore her ideas on a small scale before fashioning essays and books. Beauvoir remained an editor until her death. She died of pneumonia on April 14, 1986, in Paris.

13:44

My Marlon and Brando (2008) is a film written by a woman saying, “I can live everywhere if I live with my loved ones.” The film tells a woman’s struggle in Iran, Syria, and Iraq…Maybe most of us know the story of the film: Kurdish actor Hama Ali and Turkish actress Ayça meet each other on a film set. They fall in love while shooting a film. After the shoot, Ayça returns to Istanbul and Hama has to go back to his home

12:05

In recent years, more singers begin to sing songs in Zazaki, a dialect of Kurdish. Zarance’s album titled, “Wayirê Vengê Ma” is one of the works in Zazaki. Zarance explains why she released her album in the following sentences, “The primary aim to release this album is to be a breath in my mother language Xızır (also known as Zazaki/Kirmanckî), to protect the traditional culture, language, belief, and nature of Dersim (Tunceli). Zarance was born in the Ardıçlı (Gersunut) village of Dersim’s Pülümür district. She had her primary and secondary and high school education in Bursa province. She studied geophysical science at Istanbul University and she did her doctorate in geophysical science at Kiel University in Germany. Wayirê Vengê Ma is the first album of Zarance.

13:31

09:25

Betty Friedan’s book “The Feminine Mystique” was published in 1963. During 1964, the book became a bestselling nonfiction book with over one million copies sold. In the book, Friedan challenged the widely shared belief in the 1950s that "fulfillment as a woman had only one definition for American women after 1949, the housewife-mother." Andi Zeisler described the book as, “Feminine Mystique is the Tupac Shakur of literary feminism, reincarnated at least once every decade with new insights that engender old beefs while at the same time serving as a reminder of why it’s a classic.”

09:22

“Can you teach me a song you think I should bring back home?” is the only question of musician Petra Nachtmanova during her journeys to both the end of the world and the center of her heart. She travels from Berlin to Istanbul, through Anatolia, over the snowy peaks of the Caucasus and into the dusty desert of eastern Iran. Saz is a film about the power of music and the scope of the world, simultaneously a road movie and a quest for meaning, a breathtaking trip in the border region between Europe and Asia, which shows that despite conflict and crisis, there is a human everyday life out there, as well as something special that holds us together.

13:23

Gurbetelli Ersöz was Turkey’s first female editor-in-chief. She was born in the Akbulut village of Elazığ’s Palu district. When she was born, her father was a worker in Germany and that’s why she was named Gurbetelli (foreign place). When she was a third-grade student at primary school, her difference with her friends and teachers was her language. She began to ask why, how at that time. She studied chemistry at the Çukurova University. Later she worked as an assistant at the Çukurova University. She began to get involved actively in politics

10:29

Sara Naeini was born July 2, 1983 in Shiraz, Iran. Her mother Horoush Khalili is a music teacher, her father Rahim Hassan Naeini is a sportsman. Sara Naeini sings Farsi songs. The performance of female singers has been banned in Iran so Sara Naeini cannot take to stage to sing. Sara continues her musical life away from her homeland and sings Farsi songs.

11:54

Her first book Kadının Adı Yok (The woman Has No Name) was published in 1987 but it was banned in 1998 by the government because it was found obscene, dangerous for children, and undermining marriage. After two years of lawsuits, the ban was lifted, and her book was also filmed. Her first book was translated into Germany and the Netherlands. Her second book “Aslında Aşk da Yok (Actually, There Is Also No Love)” is considered as the continuation of her first book.

08:23

Born in Tunis in 1982, Emel Mathlouthi is a Tunisian singer-songwriter, musician, arranger, and producer. She rose to fame with her protest song "Kelmti Horra (My Word is Free)”, which became an anthem for the Tunisian revolution and the Arab spring. Her first studio album, also titled Kelmti Horra, was released worldwide in 2012. Her second album, Ensen, was released in 2017. Emel Mathlouthi started singing and acting when she was eight years old. She wrote her first song when she was 10 years old.

09:25

If you haven’t read one of Oya Baydar’s books, Farewell Alyosha will be a good start. Her book “Farewell Alyosha”, which compiled 12 stories of exile, was published in Turkey in 1991 and was awarded the Sait Faik Story Prize. She won the Yunus Nadi Novel Prize in 1993 with her novel Cat Letters. “Returning Nowhere” was published in 1998