Application summary

Zeybek is a feature film about two queer women, one in Turkey, the other in England, who meet online and fall into a long-distance relationship. As their connection deepens, so does the desire to cross the border between them. But crossing is not the same from both sides. They live in entirely different worlds. What is a dream for one is taken for granted by the other. Through each other, both women begin to see what had remained out of view. The woman in Turkey starts to recognise how different a life can be, how it might expand. The woman in England, for the first time, confronts how much she has never had to fight for, while also discovering a sense of closeness, care, and belonging that feels increasingly distant in her own world. The film follows their attempt to close the distance between them, and everything that stands in the way: cultural divides, bureaucracy, suppression, systems that were never built with love in mind. Zeybek asks whether love is enough to cross that distance, and what it costs to try. The formal concept mirrors the story. Two directors each create one side of the film, working from within their character’s world. One films Turkey. One films England. Neither directs the other’s work. Each world is shaped through a distinct gaze, allowing the distance between them to be felt not only in the narrative, but in every frame. In post-production, these two visual languages, rhythms, and realities are brought together into a single film. As far as we know, this approach has no direct precedent in cinema. Separation becoming connection. Over two months at Saari, we will develop the film's narrative structure, write a full treatment, and complete a first draft of the screenplay, alongside a project framework to support its next stage of funding and production. (Zeybek is a Turkish word, an Aegean warrior dance named after outlaws who stood against injustice, with slow and sweeping movements resembling the flight of a hawk)