A JOURNEY TO THE BLACK SEA
Horona Duranlar
SPECIAL MENTION
BTF's 19th Documentary & Short Film Competition
APRIL 4 - 15, 2025
Directed by Bahriye Kabadayı Dal
Doc. / 49 min. / 2024 / with English subtitles
The film invites audiences on a journey through the world of 'kemençe' and 'horon,' musical traditions that hold magical power for the Black Sea people living in Türkiye, Greece, and other countries. The main character, Adem Ekiz, is a young musician with a traditional lifestyle. A devout Muslim, his mother tongue is Pontian Greek, the ancient language of the Black Sea Greeks. He lives in the village of Sürmene in Trabzon, Türkiye, with his wife and three children. Adem follows his heart, driven by a desire and sincerity to pass on his cultural heritage to his children and future generations. Quietly, he breaks the chains of prejudice.
Selected Festivals and Awards
- Boston Turkish Festival’s 19th Annual Documentary & Short Film Competition (2024): Special Mention
- Ischia Global Film Festival, Italy (2024)
- Foça Film Days, Türkiye (2024)
Director BAHRİYE KABADAYI DAL
Bahriye Kabadayı Dal (1977, Istanbul) graduated from Marmara University's Faculty of Communication, Department of Radio, Television, and Cinema, in 1998. During her university years, she produced news films and short documentaries. Her first documentary, "The Last Hands" (1998), was about a gramophone master. In 1997, she joined the VTR Research Production team and began volunteering with the Association of Documentary Filmmakers (BSB). Between 2007 and 2011, and again from 2015 to 2017, she served on the BSB's Board of Directors. In 2009, she directed the International 1001 Documentary Film Festival on behalf of the BSB. Her first feature-length documentary, "A Bridge at the Edge of the World (Devrimci Gençlik Köprüsü)", was selected for Meda Films Development, a Euromed program held in Morocco-Marrakech in 2006. The film won the Best Documentary Film award from the SİYAD Turkish Film Critics Association in 2008 and screened at numerous national and international festivals. In 2013, she founded TarRKEçın Film and produced "Fish of BTUosporus" (2013), "The Mysterious Stones of Hakkâri" (2014), and "Baksı from Utopia to Reality" (2016) with Burak Dal. In 2021, she and Burak Dal produced three short films, "Do You See the Sea?", to raise awareness about pollution and declining fish stocks in the Sea of Marmara. These films were supported by Sivil Düşün (SD), a European Union program. In 2022, she directed "Guardians of the Seas" for WWF Türkiye- Wildlife Conservation Foundation. She has also participated in international workshops such as Docstories Black Sea (Georgia/Romania/The Netherlands) in 2012, BSB Pitch-in Istanbul in 2015, and the İKSV Istanbul Biennial Work Program in 2019 with the project "A Black Sea Journey" consisting of different formats. She is currently the chair of the board of the BSB Association of Documentary Filmmakers in Türkiye.
“Baksı: From Utopia to Reality” is the recipient of Best Documentary Award at BTF’s 11th Documentary & Short Film Competition in 2017, and “The Fish of Bosphorus” was selected as a finalist and screened at the Competition in 2013. |
