Yakamoz Film Selected as Festival Finalist

On this day (August 6) a hundred years ago, Greek Orthodox Christians from the village of Gelveri in Türkiye left their church, their community, and their homeland for an unknown future in Greece as part of the population exchange between the two countries. Now, the SAT-7 TÜRK film about this historic event is making an impact in Türkiye and beyond.   

Yakamoz is currently showing in Turkish theaters following a premiere on June 28 and a public open-air screening in Güzelyurt (the modern name for Gelveri), Aksaray, where Yakamoz was filmed, on July 5. Local civic leaders and members of the community were full of praise for the film.

Aksaray Governor Mehmet Ali Kumbuzoğlu said, “It is a great honor for us to watch this meaningful and emotional film in our district.” Mayor Evren Dinçer said, “We are happy to hold such an eventfor everyone to watch this movie, where art and history meet.”

Yakamoz has been selected as a finalist in the CEMVA (Christian European Visual Media Association) film festival, which takes place in France in September, and is also attracting widespread positive coverage in the Turkish media. A review in Magazinname said:

“The film tells about a deep, unprecedented sadness that echoes like thunder, the brokenness of life, the secrets exchanged, the dreams that are looted… Yakamoz is a carefully prepared film that deserves applause with its script, director, masterful acting, semantic integrity, costume design, and landscaping, which I think will keep its place in the memory for a long time.”

Unexpected Friendships

The film tells the fictional story of one Christian family from Gelveri and one Muslim family from Kavala in Greece, who are forced to live together for a time while the population exchange is taking place.

From different backgrounds, religions, and cultures, the two families are initially uncomfortable and resistant, but as they start to understand and sympathize with each other, they find points of connection and become friends.

The Armenian Patriarch of Türkiye, Patriarch Sahak II, said, “It’s a very important movie. While [others] take one side into consideration for attention and propaganda purposes, [SAT-7] has treated both sides equally from a human perspective.”

SAT-7 TÜRK produced the film in conjunction with Tepe Medya and Metafor Production. The filmmakers consulted Greek and Turkish academics on the project, as well as descendants of people on both sides who were exchanged, including one who runs a museum in Greece about the exchange. Some scenes were filmed at a property – now a hotel – in Güzelyurt that had belonged to a family who was sent to Greece.

History of the Population Exchange

Yakamoz is the only film being released this year to mark the population exchange between Türkiye and Greece, in which more than 1.5 million people were forcibly relocated a century ago. In a convention signed at Lausanne in 1923 in the aftermath of the First World War, Türkiye and Greece agreed to exchange “Turkish nationals of the Greek Orthodox religion established in Turkish territory, and Greek nationals of the Muslim religion established in Greek territory.”¹

The film showcases an important piece of Türkiye’s Christian heritage, as three quarters of those displaced were Greek Orthodox Christians, whose families had previously lived in Türkiye for hundreds of years.

Although the migrating people returned to their ancestral homelands, they encountered many problems integrating because they were unfamiliar with the culture and, in some cases, didn’t even know the language. Some of their social, housing, and education problems have persisted through the generations since the exchange.

And while Yakamoz highlights a traumatic period in the past, themes of forced migration, discrimination, lack of religious freedom, and the universality of human suffering are just as relevant today in Türkiye, and across the Middle East and North Africa, as they were then.

Source

¹ https://www.mfa.gov.tr/lausanne-peace-treaty-vi_-convention-concerning-the-exchange-of-greek-and-turkish-populations-signed-at-lausanne_.en.mfa