March 8, 2020: A Memoir

Synopsis

We are on Taksim Square watching the aftermath of this last mass demonstration in the city, before the COVID-19 pandemic. Two voices reflect on what they see on the screen. A child playing with a red balloon, youngsters dancing on the street, people taking photos, Marina Abramovic’s first exhibition in Istanbul… As the narrative unfolds, images take new meaning: These are screen recordings of Istanbul municipalities’ 7/24 live and open-access ‘Touristic Cameras’ taken on the 8th of March Women’s Day 2020. March 8, 2020: A Memoir is a multi-voiced desktop-essay/documentary attempting to find the blind spots of such images, traveling in time via screen recordings. A desktop documentary/video essay about the Feminist Night March protest in Istanbul in 2020, entirely created with screen recordings of the event and its aftermath, deconstructing and repurposing touristic and surveillance images.

Director Biography

Fırat Yücel is a film critic and a filmmaker. He co-founded Altyazı Monthly Cinema Magazine in 2001, and worked as the magazine’s editor in chief since then. He co-directed ONLY BLOCKBUSTERS LEFT ALIVE (2016), worked as the co-editor of the short documentary WELCOME LENIN (2016) and as the co-editor of the medium length documentary AUDIENCE EMANCIPATED: THE STRUGGLE OF THE EMEK MOVIE THEATER (2016).