Diary as a Form: Whose Story?

Duvar nereden geçiyordu?: Dolaşık hafızaların güncesi (Where was the Wall? A Diary of Intertwined Memories)
Meltem Ahıska, Aylin Kuryel, Turkey, 2026, 35 min. Turkish, English, German with English subtitles 

mutluluk (happiness)
Fırat Yücel, Turkey, Netherlands, 2025, 18 min. English, Turkish, Dutch, Arabic, Serbian with English subtitles

I Would Like to Visit
Muhammad Nour-Elkhairy, Canada, Palestinian Territory, 2017, 4 min. English

Followed by a talk with Meltem Ahıska, Aylin Kuryel, Fırat Yücel

This selection brings together three video works that approach the diary form as both a personal and political space of reflection. Where was the Wall? follows the traces of a diary written in Berlin in 2025, attending to the visible/invisible marks left in the city by a fallen wall. happiness takes the form of a desktop diary moving between screens and protests. I Would Like to Visit incorporates the process of text editing to reflect on immigration policies and the political realities of Palestinians in relation to borders. In these shorts, the desktop screen becomes the space for diaries in motion, being typed, edited and reviewed — a surface where the interior and the exterior fold into each other. (Fırat Yücel)

Meltem Ahıska is an academic and a writer based in Istanbul, whose published works dwell on subjects such as political subjectivity, archives, monuments, and feminism, and include sociological and literary texts.  

Aylin Kuryel is Assistant Professor of Literary and Cultural Analysis at the University of Amsterdam, working across research, filmmaking, and collaborative practices at the intersection of art and politics. 

Fırat Yücel is a documentary maker and film editor based in Amsterdam and Istanbul, who collaborates with Aylin Kuryel under Image Acts and curates video series for Altyazı Fasikül: Free Cinema in Istanbul.