Sober Nights

One of Switzerland’s most prominent contemporary artists, Renée Levi has opened two exhibitions and made a public art installation in September 2022, in Istanbul. Levi was born in Istanbul in 1960 and moved to Switzerland when she was 6. To her, this city has come to mean her childhood and the homeland of her parents. Especially in the last decade Levi proved prolific with her institutional exhibitions in France, Germany and Italy, and she was particularly praised for her exceptional public art projects in Switzerland. All throughout her oeuvre, Levi has come to emphasise her city of birth and her Sephardic heritage. One of the rare leading woman figures in abstract expressionism, she is also known for her way of naming each and every one of her works after a woman’s name.

Eager in spirit for a better world, an amateur rock band from bohemian Istanbul embarks on an impromptu tour to mainland Turkey, in hopes of sharing their music and love with fellow countrymen.

Jale, a free-spirited street vendor in her late thirties, roams around the forsaken shores of the Bosphorus. She crosses paths with heartbroken teenagers, an obnoxious admirer, exorcists, exhibitionists, fellow street sellers, fisherwomen and treasure-hunters. Like frogs gathered around a pond, they only have each other––and the timeworn, yet still glittering, Diamond Sea.

Catalyzed by a chance encounter, Can Eskinazi’s short then sinks into the pleasures of meandering conversation. Immersed in a nocturnal palette of inky blacks and luminous whites, this road movie in miniature follows its drunken characters walking, talking, and looking toward wide-open skies.

A sarcastic, erotic, and tense gaze into the private, professional and social lives of Istanbulite artists whose lives intertwine with fiction.

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.