Movies Similar to My Life as a Turkey

Architects of Denial(2017)

Though both the historical and modern-day persecution of Armenians and other Christians is relatively uncovered in the mainstream media and not on the radar of many average Americans, it is a subject that has gotten far more attention in recent years.

Blue(2017)

A thorough look at the 90's Turkish rock scene, one legendary stage band and its two members: Kerim Capli and Yavuz Cetin... An inquiry of their existential battles with the society, the industry and their own minds.

Intent to Destroy: Death, Denial & Depiction(2017)

INTENT TO DESTROY embeds with a historic feature production as a springboard to explore the violent history of the Armenian Genocide and legacy of Turkish suppression and denial over the past century.

Doctor Who: The Time of the Doctor(2013)

Orbiting a quiet backwater planet, the massed forces of the universe's deadliest species gather, drawn to a mysterious message that echoes out to the stars. And amongst them, the Doctor. Rescuing Clara from a family Christmas dinner, the Time Lord and his best friend must learn what this enigmatic signal means for his own fate and that of the universe.

The Last Apostle: Journies in the Holy Land(2020)

Dr. Mark Fairchild, world-renowned archaeologist, traces the hidden years of Saint Paul's life in the mountainous Turkish countryside of Rough Cilicia.

Revza(2016)

While the film focuses on a mother and son’s relationship, it investigates the long-term effects of the immigration of the filmmaker’s family from Bulgaria to Turkey and the life of a widow in a patriarchal culture.

Atatürk, père de la Turquie moderne(2023)

Trans*BUT — Fragments of Identity(2015)

Fragmentary perspectives on Human Rights and transgender (trans*) People in Turkey. What remains at the place where a murder happened? What constitutes trans* life? How to cope with daily violence and hatred? We begin to search for traces. We follow the tracks of resistance and survival. We are collectors of the expelled. We gather fragments of trans* lives inspired by texts of Nazim Hikmet, Foucault, Benjamin and Zeki Müren. Trans*BUT is a documental research study driven by the question: “What keeps you going when all else falls away?”

Remake, Remix, Rip-Off: About Copy Culture & Turkish Pop Cinema(2019)

Turkey in the 1960s and 1970s was one of the biggest producers of film in the world. In order to keep up with the demand, screenwriters and directors were copying scripts and remaking movies from all over the world. This documentary visits the fastest working directors, the most practical cameramen and the most hardheaded actors to have a closer look into the country's tumultuous history of movie making.

Krüger aus Almanya(2015)

Berlin widower Paul Krüger, a retired ex-GDR stone mason (66), hates foreigner immigrants, especially Muslims. When his beloved, doting granddaughter Annie plans to marry Deniz, an ambitious student and waiter in Ankara who needs a visa for Germany, backward Paul and his buddy, publican Karin, go on Turkish 'holiday' so he can talk her out of it. But Deniz proves her only choice and probably a right one, even if countrymen and family win Paul's heart, as well as a resourceful preteen-thief, who proves an orphaned Syrian refugee. Paul even promises to plead with his counterpart, Deniz's family patriarch, who opposes him marrying a Christian infidel at pain of expulsion from the close clan.

The Armenian Genocide(2006)

Explores the Ottoman Empire killings of more than one million Armenians during World War I. The film describes not only what happened before, during and since World War I, but also takes a direct look at the genocide denial maintained by Turkey to the present day.

Visitors at the Door(2018)

Are we alone in the universe? This question has been preoccupying humanity for decades. Today, people don’t believe in extraterrestrial life. But there are witnesses from different countries, having interesting experiences. This documentary focuses on stories of a group of people from Turkey who had those kind of experiences.

Ecumenopolis: City Without Limits(2011)

Ecumenopolis: City Without Limits" tells the story of Istanbul and other Mega-Cities on a neo-liberal course to destruction. It follows the story of a migrant family from the demolition of their neighborhood to their on-going struggle for housing rights. The film takes a look at the city on a macro level and through the eyes of experts, going from the tops of mushrooming skyscrapers to the depths of the railway tunnel under the Bosphorous strait; from the historic neighborhoods in the south to the forests in the north; from isolated islands of poverty to the villas of the rich. It's an Istanbul going from 15 million to 30 million. It's an Istanbul going from 2 million cars to 8 million. It's the Istanbul of the future that will soon engulf the entire region. It's an Istanbul nobody has ever seen before.

12 September: Coup Diary(1998)

Turkish democracy got over May 27 and March 12 and set off again, but the storm did not subside, and the mutual reckoning was not over. On the contrary, new fronts were opened in the country and blood began to flow like a gutter. Finally, on September 12, there was a knock on the door again. Those who came that day changed everything, everything. Nothing will ever be the same again

Afrique-France : le divorce ?(2025)

September 12: From Cyprus to Frontline(1998)

Turkish democracy got over the 27th of May and the 12th of March and set off again, but the storm did not subside and the mutual reckoning was not over. On the contrary, new fronts were opened in the country and blood began to flow like a gutter. Finally, on September 12, there was a knock on the door again. Those who came that day changed everything, everything. Nothing would ever be the same again, nothing would be the same as before.

12 September: On the Brink of the Abyss(1998)

Turkish democracy got over the 27th of May and the 12th of March and set off again, but the storm did not subside and the mutual reckoning was not over. On the contrary, new fronts were opened in the country and blood began to flow like a gutter. Finally, on September 12, there was a knock on the door again. Those who came that day changed everything, everything. Nothing would ever be the same again, nothing would be the same as before.

How to Remember

The story of a young Kurdish man who tries to remember his past traumatic experiences. A young migrant struggles to remember the memories of post-2015 Turkey while faced with the commemoration practices of the Holocaust. The film takes place in present-day Krakow, Poland, particularly in the former Nazi concentration camp in Plaszow.

Kampf auf der Bosporus-Brücke - Die Türkei und der gescheiterte Putschversuch(2021)

The night of July 15, 2016 changed the history of Turkey. On that day there were coordinated attacks by parts of the Turkish army, among others in Istanbul. The aim of the military: a coup against the government. The decisive confrontation occurred on the Bosporus Bridge. While President Erdogan was still on vacation, live at TV he called on the people who were devoted to him to stand against the military. As an enemy for the masses, he presented his adversary Fethullah Gülen, whom he branded as the coup leader. He also urged the imams of the country's mosques to condition the population to resist. And so it happens that at night thousands of agitated people take to the streets to oppose the armed insurgents. The death toll was high. 352 people died across Turkey during the attempted coup. The consequences are even more serious: Erdogan used this gift, as he called it himself, to undermine democracy, to arrange mass arrests of dissidents and to transform Turkey into a dictatorship.

Pehlivan(1964)

Pehlivan focuses on a three-day wrestling competition, an ancient tradition that dates back over a thousand years to the time of the Ottoman Empire, originating in the games the soldiers would play to entertain themselves in between battles. Maybe that's why there's more than a hint of homoeroticism in the way the wrestlers oil themselves up with grease, making sure to cover every inch of their bodies so that their opponents will be unable to get a grip. Pialat's closeups emphasize the men's muscular bodies jammed together and sliding off one another, posed in intimate, twisted arrangements, struggling desperately for a grip on each other's bodies. Arms are jammed down pants, one of the only places there's some potential for a handhold, and the whole thing is very suggestive and sensual, a form of intimate male contact that's sanctioned as a show of strength and masculinity.