Blue, Revolution and VHS Tapes

Blue, Revolution and VHS Tapes

revolution, vhstapes, archive

2025 · 17 min

An archival biography in three chapters, exploring the revolutionary potential of being a cinephile... A war pilot, a radical revolutionary, and a cinephile... This is the portrait of a man who left the army and built a successful career as businessman in Europe. Only a few people knew that he was also an undercover member of the resistance movement against Turkey’s military regime in early 1970s. Mekin Gönenç later dedicated most of his life to the movies. When he died after suffering a heart attack while swimming in 2011, he left behind thousands of VHS tapes and meticulously crafted home-made film journals. His death between the two blues he cherished most—the sea and the sky— now give some consolation to his wife. Through archives, we trace the journey of a 20th-century romantic. (DokuFest, Balkan Dox, 2025 )

Directed by Serdar Kökçeoğlu · Written by Elif Dizdaroğlu

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Blue, Revolution and VHS Tapes

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Double Exposure

Double Exposure · 2024

Double Exposure

MovieMysteryDrama

A photographer girl enters a street to take street photographs as usual and takes a few photos that she thinks are normal. When she washes the photos and hangs them, she sees that she is actually in one of the photos and goes in search of that person.

Mimaroğlu: The Robinson of Manhattan Island

Mimaroğlu: The Robinson of Manhattan Island · 2020

Mimaroğlu: The Robinson of Manhattan Island

MovieDocumentary

At the beginning of the 1960s, İlhan and Güngör Mimaroğlu moved from İstanbul to New York to start a new life. With a keen interest in avant-garde music, İlhan Mimaroğlu went on to become a leading composer of the nascent field of electronic music with his work at Columbia University, while Güngör Mimaroğlu would show an exemplary political stance at the forefront of the peace protests that took the 1960s by storm. "Mimaroğlu" is the story of a unique pair of spirits that have complemented each other in many ways.

Usmanbaş: Modernist

Usmanbaş: Modernist

Usmanbaş: Modernist

MovieDocumentaryMusic

Türkiye’s modernization adventure is an intermittent one that carries the pains of transition from empire to republic and of geographical liminality in every aspect of culture. At the center of this arduous modernist attitude in art is İlhan Usmanbaş, who was born in 1921 in the Ottoman Empire, whose atonal music of the 1950s influenced not only the field of music but also literature. As an essay film, Modernist: Usmanbaş both traces the composer's insistence on playing 20th century music in his compositions and visual notation and follows him in the private nursing home where he lived from the age of 100 to 103. While the film records Usmanbaş's curiosity in natural history and the intellectual structure he built between music, science and mathematics with the testimonies of the last years of his life, it also makes references to modernist art in formal terms as a meta attitude.

dear caricaturist,

dear caricaturist, · 2026

dear caricaturist,

MovieDocumentaryAnimation

The hundreds of letters left behind after Latif Demirci's passing describe not only a illustrator's fanbase, but the troubles and dreams of a certain era in Turkey, and a human spirit naive enough to confide in a cartoon hero. While the documentary traces the loss between the slowness of the letter and today's culture of speed, it puts forth a very original portrait of the artist, highlighted by the contributions of his filmmaker daughter Yasemin Demirci, his artistic partner Behiç Pek, and comic book historian Levent Cantek.

Lale Müldür and All the Nightclubs of Istanbul

Lale Müldür and All the Nightclubs of Istanbul · 2026

Lale Müldür and All the Nightclubs of Istanbul

Brought to life from the outtakes of director Deniz Yüksel’s long-running Lale Müldür documentary, "Lale Müldür and All the Nightclubs of Istanbul" brings to light a memory of the poet alongside a previously unpublished piece of her writing. The music for the documentary, edited for Postbellek, was produced by Atonal Sounds.

Sultan's Organ: A Gift

Sultan's Organ: A Gift · 2025

Sultan's Organ: A Gift

MovieHistoryDocumentary

Queen Elizabeth I commissions a magnificent mechanical organ for Sultan Mehmed III, crafted by the famed Thomas Dallam. The organ, adorned with singing birds and celestial mechanisms, is shipped over six months of treacherous seas. Upon arrival, Dallam assembles it and personally plays the organ as the Sultan eagerly awaits. Yet, despite its grandeur, the organ’s story ends in tragedy. Postbellek's short documentary was produced with the guidance and narration of Emre Aracı, and it leverages artificial intelligence by Atıl Altaş.

Mimaroğlu Remix Project

Mimaroğlu Remix Project · 2025

Mimaroğlu Remix Project

MovieDocumentary

A collection of 8mm film reels from İlhan Mimaroğlu’s archive—once tucked away in whisky boxes—has found new life through art. Curated by director Serdar Kökçeoğlu and producer Dilek Aydın, the project brings together visual artists and musicians to reimagine these long-lost images. Over thirty artists transformed the footage into fifteen distinct audiovisual pieces, blending experimental soundscapes with contemporary video art. The project concludes with a special highlight: the first-ever screening of Mimaroğlu’s silent short film about a street jazz festival, accompanied by Erdem Helvacıoğlu’s dark jazz score.

Listening Through İstanbul

Listening Through İstanbul · 2018

Listening Through İstanbul

Composer Erdem Helvacıoğlu recorded sounds at three different locations around İstanbul and turned them into compositions. This film documents a journey in pursuit of sounds.

ZeNistaN A Live Documentary Experience

ZeNistaN A Live Documentary Experience · 2026

ZeNistaN A Live Documentary Experience

A live documentary experience built around archival footage of the 90s psychedelic band ZeN and their 1996 concert at Cihangir Park. Directed by Elif Dizdaroğlu, the event evolved into a layered performance through Murat Ertel’s improvised talk and music. Blending archival footage with live Q&A and performance, the night collapsed the distance between past and present audiences. Now available on Postbellek, the project became a collective trip back into the spirit of the 90s.

Catstanbul

Catstanbul · 2025

MovieDocumentary

We take a closer look at Istanbul’s cats, their history, and their place in civilization during a short tour of the Cihangir neighborhood with Gündüz Vassaf, the author of The Cat in Istanbul.

Smoke and Rubber: Inside Modified Car Culture

Smoke and Rubber: Inside Modified Car Culture · 2025

Smoke and Rubber: Inside Modified Car Culture

MovieDocumentaryAction

Speed, emotion, dream. Smoke and Rubber follows the drivers of Istanbul who dedicate it all to modified car culture. Beyond the noise, it traces how speed, sound, and the performance of masculinity define a way of living, from the garage to the streets. Based on ongoing research, this is a reflective portrait of a noisy world.

Muslimgauze: Electronic Intifada

Muslimgauze: Electronic Intifada · 2025

Muslimgauze: Electronic Intifada

In an age where silence is complicity, Muslimgauze: Electronic Intifada resurrects the haunting pulse of Bryn Jones—the Manchester-born musician who devoted his entire life to the Palestinian struggle without ever setting foot in the Middle East. Through the voices of his publisher and best friend, Geert-Jan Hobijn, Turkish musician Ekin Fil, and Turkish author Şule Demirtaş, the film traces Jones’s obsessive solitude and commitment in the studio, where he crafted a sonic battlefield of noise, resistance, and distortion. Postbellek's short documentary Muslimgauze: Electronic Intifada unfolds where the political collides with the artistic—a visual translation of noise into awakening. Confronting the uneasy intersections of politics, art, and representation, it is not a eulogy but a provocation: a reminder that resistance can echo louder than words—and sometimes, from the most unexpected corners of the world.

Composer İlhan Usmanbaş Turns 100!

Composer İlhan Usmanbaş Turns 100!

Composer İlhan Usmanbaş Turns 100!

Ever-innovative and pioneering contemporary composer İlhan Usmanbaş celebrated his 100th birthday! Usmanbaş shared his life story with #BirGünTV.

Kerem Görsev and All That Jazz

Kerem Görsev and All That Jazz · 2026

Kerem Görsev and All That Jazz

MovieMusicDocumentary

To speak of jazz in Turkey is to speak of Kerem Görsev. In this intimate short documentary, director Levent Türkan sits down with the maestro to unravel İstanbul’s profound impact on his art. Together, they explore his hidden inspirations and the true musical pulse of the city. A deeply personal journey into the soul of Kerem Görsev, the essence of jazz, and the beating heart of İstanbul.

Nobody Comes Nobody Goes...

Nobody Comes Nobody Goes... · 2014

Nobody Comes Nobody Goes...

MovieThrillerMystery

What if an old pal of yours or the person you have been married for years starts to think that you are not "you"? And what if you are no longer "you" at that moment? Or, while all this is happening, what if, you are confronted with the "you" that could not be "you"? "Nobody Comes, Nobody Goes..." is a psychological thriller trying to break the psyche links of reality that people establish with themselves and the life, while endeavors to present a discrete experience to its audience and provide experiment all new stuff with respect to levels of wording, text, emotions, perception, and phenomena.

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