National Documentary Competition

PATRIDA

• Directors: Ayça Damgacı, Tümay Göktepe
• TURKEY, FRANCE, GERMANY / 2021 / DCP / Colour / 67’ / Turkish, German, English, Greek, Kurdish;  English s.t.

• Screenplay: Ayça Damgacı
• Director of Photography: Tümay Göktepe
• Editing: Karine Germain
• With: İsmet Damgacı, Müşerref Damgacı, Ayça Damgacı
• Producer: Ayça Damgacı
• Co-Producer: Anne-Catherine Witt, Willy Rollé
• Production Co.: Lunatik Film, Macalube Films, Tavma, Lyon Capitale TV
• World Sales: Lunatik Film

In order to fulfil my 87-year-old West Thracian father’s wish to see for the very first time, the lands where he and his family were born, we re-travel the forced migration route, which he had done with his family many years ago, backwards this time. A journey from Istanbul to Xanthi, Thessaloniki, Athens and finally to Zurich... Patrida is the story of a father and daughter trying to question and reconcile their family and shared past, as well as their “assigned” belongings-identities.

“What about a journey ... Is a journey enough to understand the violence, anger, our fears, all this?”

*Patrida: (In Greek) Homeland, “fatherland.”

--Ayça Damgacı

This film was a Meetings on the Bridge participant.