Memory-Like: An Oral History of QueerFest

Directors: Asya Leman, Sumru Kesik
Turkey, 2024, 70’, DCP, color
Turkish with English subtitles

The documentary focuses on the journey of QueerFest, Turkey’s first and only LGBTI+ film festival, held in Ankara since 2011, from its inception to the present day. Through interviews with QueerFest’s founders, volunteers, and staff, it explores the festival’s 14-year history and the cultural-artistic landscape shaped by Turkey’s political climate. Within this narrative, the stories of individuals contributing to the festival highlight how their practices of resistance against increasing oppression and violence targeting LGBTI+ people in Turkey each year have evolved into a form of collective organizing through QueerFest. The documentary emphasizes the unifying and empowering aspects of this togetherness.

QueerFest’s connection to the Pink Life Association and its ties to Ankara’s queer community demonstrate how it transformed its cultural capital into a powerful political voice by developing an organizing practice through art. Despite the bans and heavy censorship, it has faced annually since 2017, the festival continues to resist and create space for many queer individuals in Turkey who are passionate about culture and the arts and wish to contribute to these fields. This documentary reveals the secrets behind how QueerFest has managed to sustain itself despite the institutionalized hatred produced by ruling powers against queers, whose very existence is criminalized.

Looking beyond the surface-level pressures and challenges, this work provides a window into QueerFest’s founding purpose and the pure intentions underlying its resistance practices. Centered on the theme “Return to the Essence,” it coincides with the festival's 13th edition. Additionally, it aims to evoke and preserve a sense of historical continuity and the roots of resistance.

The crew will attend.