Director: Pierre-Yves Vandeweerd
France, Belgium, siyah-beyaz / black & white, 2007, 102’
French, Fula with Turkish subtitles

Le Cercle des Noyés is the term for a group of political prisoners arrested in Mauritania in 1986 because of their fight for equal rights for blacks, and who, cut off from the outside world, were incarcerated in a fortress in the desert for years. There they had to endure inhumane conditions, humiliation, forced labor, and torture. Le Cercle des Noyés is a political documentary that is reflective both aesthetically and politically in equal parts, without causing one to suffer at the expense of the other. A text, read calmly and with great dignity, consisting of the testimonies and memories of the prisoners, never rehabilitated, is juxtaposed with stunningly impressive black-and-white images from 2006 – “scenes of the crime” that bear no traces of the past, just as if nothing had ever happened. The film is not so much an analysis of the historical and sociopolitical background in Mauritania as it is about the paradigms of political tyranny, misuse of power, injustice, and torture. As such, it can be understood not only as a gesture against forgetting, but also as a parable that can extend as far as Guantánamo.

Odessa...Odessa!

Odessa...Odessa!

Nostalgia For The Light

Nostalgia For The Light

The Hour Of Berger

The Hour Of Berger

Land Of The Wandering Souls

Land Of The Wandering Souls

Drowned In Oblivion

Drowned In Oblivion

Is mutual understanding possible? <br> Berlinde De Bruyckere

Is mutual understanding possible?
Berlinde De Bruyckere

Pera Museum, in collaboration with Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV), is one of the main venues for this year’s 15th Istanbul Biennial from 16 September to 12 November 2017.  Through the biennial, we will be sharing detailed information about the artists and the artworks.

Medicinal Herbs in Byzantium

Medicinal Herbs in Byzantium

Knowledge of plants and the practice of healing are closely entwined. The toxic or hallucinogenic nature of some roots, and the dangers associated with picking them, conferred a mythical or magical character and power. 

Girl in a Blue Dress

Girl in a Blue Dress

This life-size portrait of a girl is a fine example of the British art of portrait painting in the early 18th century. The child is shown posing on a terrace, which is enclosed at the right foreground by the plinth of a pillar; the background is mainly filled with trees and shrubs.