Maria Binder is a documentary filmmaker. She works as a writer, director and producer on the topics of human rights, gender and racism and has realized several films in Turkey, among others. Her latest film is EREN (2023) . Her film Trans X Istanbul was awarded the FACE / Special Mention, Film Prize of the Council of Europe in 2014. Other films (selection): Trans *BUT – Fragments of Identity (2015), Who are you to speak? (together with Verena Franke) (2006), Hope in the Heart – Oral Poetry of May Ayim (1997). She studied video art at the Berlin University of the Arts, in Marburg, Regensburg and at the Free University of Berlin, sociology, politics and psychology.

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

The film is an invitation to see Turkey on different levels and to read it through the eyes of the protagonist against the grain. Eren Keskin destroys the common narratives of her country: the founding of the republic through the supposedly rightful struggle for freedom of a unified, Turkish and religious folk. Eren Keskin brings into focus the sore points of the founding of the state: expulsion, appropriation, rape, genocide.

How can a just and peaceful society ever emerge in a state built on violence and injustice without confronting this history of origins? How can one resist autocratic, nationalistic systems?

The theme of the film is timeless and universal. It is the story of an individual who stands up for the morally right values, but has to fight against an all-encompassing, existing system of order and supremacy, knowing full well what a high price she pays in the process. It is the story of a modern Antigone who, following her inner values, rebels against tyranny.