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Flying Broom remembers—and keeps memories alive.
Flying Broom remembers—and refuses to let stories be forgotten.
Women’s Memory and Resistance at Flying Broom
The 29th Flying Broom International Women’s Film Festival will bring together audiences with the Turkish and Ankara premieres of 47 films from 23 countries between June 2–7 in Ankara, at Kült Kavaklıdere Cinema and the Etimesgut Municipality 100th Anniversary Republic Cultural Center. Tickets will go on sale via Biletinial at 12:00 PM on Monday, May 11.
Organized by the Flying Broom Foundation, the 29th Flying Broom International Women’s Film Festival will take place from June 2–7 in Ankara, at Kült Kavaklıdere Cinema and the Etimesgut Municipality 100th Anniversary Republic Cultural Center, with the support of Ankara Metropolitan Municipality, the Delegation of the European Union to Türkiye, Çankaya Municipality, and the municipalities of Etimesgut and Mamak.
Over six days, cinema lovers will have the opportunity to watch the Turkish and Ankara premieres of 47 films from 23 countries, grouped into nine sections highlighting the themes of memory and resistance, as well as participate in a variety of side events.
The International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI) jury, which will evaluate Colours of the World, the festival’s international competition programme, consists of Ece Vitrinel from Türkiye, Nadia Meflah from France, and Omnia Adel from Egypt.
The festival’s opening ceremony will take place on the evening of June 2 at the Ankara State Opera and Ballet Hall. Hosted by Şenay Gürler and Yetkin Dikinciler, the ceremony will feature the presentation of the Honorary Award to Emel Göksu, the acclaimed actress whose distinguished career spans theatre stages as well as film and television productions.
Göksu made her cinema debut in The Fugitives (Kaçaklar, 1971), directed by Şerif Gören and starring Yılmaz Güney. Throughout her career, she has delivered unforgettable performances in films such as Abdullah Oğuz’s Bliss (Mutluluk), Kutluğ Ataman’s Lamb (Kuzu), and Erkan Tahhuşoğlu’s Corridor (Koridor) and Cycle (Döngü), showcasing remarkable artistic mastery.
This year’s Bilge Olgaç Achievement Awards will be presented to Brazilian filmmaker and feminist resistance icon Lucia Murat; Dilde Mahalli, one of the leading representatives of Türkiye’s new generation of dynamic film producers; and actress Melisa Sözen, whose nuanced performances have carried her talent beyond Türkiye’s borders and into international productions.
The recipient of Flying Broom’s Young Witch Award this year is Ece Bağcı.
Lucia Murat, whose work will be celebrated with a special three-film retrospective at the festival, will visit Türkiye for the first time as a festival guest and will give a masterclass at Kült Kavaklıdere on June 3. A prominent figure of Brazilian cinema and feminist resistance, Murat’s films have consistently explored memory, political violence, and social justice.
In recent years, Dilde Mahalli has become an important representative of women’s creative production in Turkish cinema through her work as producer on films by Pelin Esmer and Emine Yıldırım, and most recently on Pınar Yorgancıoğlu’s projects. Last year, she also won the FIPRESCI Award at the Flying Broom International Women’s Film Festival with Apollon by Day Athena by Night (Gündüz Apollon Gece Athena), directed by Emine Yıldırım.
One of the defining actors of the 2000s generation, Melisa Sözen has appeared in a succession of acclaimed television series and films. Following her performances in Derviş Zaim’s Waiting for Heaven (Cenneti Beklerken) and Yavuz Turgul’s Hunting Season (Av Mevsimi), she gained international recognition with her role in Winter Sleep (Kış Uykusu), directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan, which won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2014. This year, she received further acclaim for her performance in Roya, directed by Mahnaz Mohammadi, which premiered in the Forum section of the Berlin International Film Festival.
Nineteen-year-old Ece Bağcı, whose breakthrough came with Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s About Dry Grasses (Kuru Otlar Üstüne), which competed at the Cannes Film Festival in 2023, continues to work across cinema, theatre, and television. Her performance in the film earned her the Best Supporting Actress Award at the Chicago International Film Festival.
A Bold and Diverse Programme of Festival Sections
The 29th Flying Broom International Women’s Film Festival once again presents a programme made up of nine striking sections:
Colours of the World, the international competition programme in which the FIPRESCI Award will be presented; Close-Up, bringing together the latest works of women filmmakers from Türkiye; Short Reflections from Around the World, showcasing innovative approaches to short filmmaking; and Focus: Canada, featuring five short films presented with the support of the Embassy of Canada.
The festival also includes its traditional section Beyond Pink and Blue, focusing on questions of identity; Rule Breakers, featuring films that challenge conventions in form and/or content; In Tribute to Lúcia Murat, prepared with the support of the Embassy of Brazil; and In Memory of Judit Elek, presenting three restored classics by the Hungarian master filmmaker, whom we lost on October 1, 2025.
The eight films competing in this year’s Colours of the World section bring together stories of women’s resistance and resilience from different geographies.
Kuru Taşın Başı (The Top of the Dry Stone), directed by Yeşim Ustaoğlu and Selen Heinz, focuses on villages submerged by the construction of the Yusufeli Dam and the people forced to leave their homes. Cinema Jazireh, directed by Gözde Kural and winner of the Ecumenical Jury Prize at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, follows a woman searching for her missing son amid the tragedy unfolding in Afghanistan.
Directed by Aldira Akay, Beka Munduruku, and Rilcélia Akay, Mundurukuyü – A Floresta Das Mulheres Peixe (Mundurukuyü – The Forest of Fish Women) blends mythological legends with the story of the Munduruku people of the Amazon and women’s resistance against ecological destruction. In Ghost School, Seemab Gul tells the story of a ten-year-old girl fighting for her right to education against superstition and a corrupt social order.
Calle Málaga (Malaga Street), directed by Moroccan filmmaker Maryam Touzani, brings to the screen—with a touch of humour—the story of a woman struggling to protect her home and independence.
Girls on Wire (Les filles du ciel), the directorial debut of Belgian actress Bérangère McNeese, explores solidarity and the desire for freedom among women sharing a social housing apartment. Around Paradise, directed by Yulia Lokshina and premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival, uses irony to document the corruption of a group of “settlers” attempting to build a Neo-Nazi utopia in Paraguay.
Completed over a period of ten years and incorporating stop-motion puppet animation, Anna Fitch’s Yo, Love Is a Rebellious Bird, winner of the Artistic Contribution Award at the Berlin International Film Festival, paints an unconventional portrait of a fiercely independent woman who refuses to conform to social expectations.
The films competing in this year’s programme will be evaluated by a FIPRESCI jury composed of Ece Vitrinel from Türkiye, Nadia Meflah from France, and Omnia Adel from Egypt. In addition to their work as film critics, all three jurors are also experienced festival curators.
The film selected by the jury will be announced and screened following the festival’s closing ceremony, which will take place on the evening of June 7 at Kült Kavaklıdere Cinema.
This year’s festival will also feature a special FIPRESCI Screening. The Ankara premiere of Silent Friend, which competed at the Venice International Film Festival and received the FIPRESCI Award, will be presented as part of the programme.
Directed by Hungarian filmmaker Ildikó Enyedi, who was honoured with the FIPRESCI 100th Anniversary Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2025 Cairo International Film Festival, Silent Friend overturns the conventional human-centred narrative by placing a ginkgo biloba tree at the heart of its story. Set in a botanical garden in Germany, the film follows the tree’s relationship with three different people across the years 1908, 1972, and 2020, creating a narrative that is both scientifically intriguing and spiritually profound.
Starring acclaimed actor Tony Leung, the film culminates in an unexpected finale linked to a neurologist’s research during the global lockdowns of the pandemic era, weaving together themes of memory, connection, and the passage of time.
In Honour of Inspiring Masters
The 29th Flying Broom International Women’s Film Festival presents retrospectives dedicated to two master filmmakers whose lives and works have inspired and empowered generations of women: Lucia Murat and Judit Elek.
In the section In Memory of Judit Elek: The Free Spirit of Hungarian Cinema, the festival will pay tribute to the legendary Hungarian filmmaker Judit Elek, who passed away on October 1, 2025. Organized in collaboration with the Hungarian National Film Institute, the programme celebrates Elek’s enduring legacy as one of the most courageous and distinctive voices in Hungarian cinema.
Janka Barkóczi, Head of the Archives and Research Department of the Hungarian National Film Institute, will attend the festival to introduce three of Elek’s restored films: Island on the Mainland (Sziget a szárazföldön, 1969), Maria’s Day (Mária-nap, 1984), and Maybe Tomorrow (Majd holnap, 1980).
A Holocaust survivor and one of the pioneering women artists of modern Hungarian cinema, Judit Elek spent more than five decades creating works that challenged social taboos through a distinctive cinematic language that elevated raw reality into poetry. Throughout her career, she received acclaim at prestigious festivals including Cannes, Locarno, and Berlin, becoming an iconic figure whose courage in both form and content left a lasting mark on world cinema.
In Tribute to Lúcia Murat: Cinema of Resistance and Memory is presented with the support of the Embassy of Brazil. The retrospective, eagerly anticipated by festival audiences, showcases three key works from Lúcia Murat’s filmography, which has long explored themes of military dictatorship, memory, and trauma.
The programme includes How Nice to See You Alive (Que Bom Te Ver Viva, 1989), a powerful film that resists collective amnesia through the testimonies of women who survived torture during Brazil’s military regime; Memories They Told Me (A Memória Que Me Contam, 2012), winner of the FIPRESCI Prize at the Moscow International Film Festival, which follows a group of former activists confronting the tension between the utopian ideals of their past and the realities of the present; and Playtime (Hora do Recreio), Murat’s most recent feature, which blends documentary and fiction through the perspectives of young people and received a Special Mention in the Generation 14plus section of the 2025 Berlin International Film Festival.
Tickets for the 29th Flying Broom International Women’s Film Festival will go on sale via Biletinial at 12:00 PM on May 11. Throughout the festival, tickets will also be available at the Kült Kavaklıdere box office.
Ticket prices will remain unchanged from last year: 100 TL for full admission and 50 TL for students and retirees. The festival will continue its suspended ticket initiative for all screenings, allowing audiences to support access to cinema for others. Screenings in Etimesgut will be free of charge.
Press Kit Drive Link:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1wet4eImykRhZ__f13Fe7VBlpHuRiryYh
