There are many ways of silencing people. The most efficient and sophisticated one is getting them to do it themselves, in what’s commonly known as self-censorship. Eight Turkish artists get together in order to reflect upon the dynamics of oppression, thereby revealing that we often discard our most subversive works and ideas without even realising it.
The documentary immediately ascertains that censorship in Turkey has become a lot stricter since the suppression of the Gezi Park protests in 2013. The filmmakers question whether they should cut or blur the face of the demonstrators. They debate ways to anonymise the crowd: wide shots, extreme close-ups, low shutter speed, music, etc. They discuss the dangers of filmmaking over several Zoom meetings, and repeatedly lament all that’s lost in editing. A woman documentarist creates a “missing documentaries” folder. She argues that some topics were forgotten, while other became just too difficult to discuss.
The Armenian Genocide is also a topic. Descendants of the victims deny the information about the fate and final resting place of their loved ones, helping to ensure that such crimes are never properly investigated. Are they aware that their actions encourage impunity A filmmaker questions: “do memories vanish when silence descends?”. The refusal to talk about something is a very effect effective censorship tactic. In an another segment, we learn that gay and bissexual man cruise in “the [BEEP] Ground”, between the [BEEP] Cemetery and the [BEEP] Junction. The beepingout of names represents another such technique.
This extremely austere compilation film consists mostly of Zoom conversations and computer screens. Some archive footage, cryptic CCTV images (their relevance is revealed at the end of the film), and dreamy night shots of the forbidden *** Ground help to break the visual monotony. Are the images of the cruising area actual or representative? The answer as unreliable as memory.
At a taut 67 minutes, this anthology film raises some interesting questions about the nature of censorship, and why artists sometimes abandon much cherished projects. Investigations are left unfinished, and activist films with an important call to action never see the light of the projector. Is that because fear of the repercussions prevailed? Maybe the filmmakers lost interest in the subject matter? Or it it perhaps that they never had the financial means to conclude the documentary? Whatever the answer, there is little doubt that the unrealised films carry a momentous potential. Documentarists everywhere, it’s time to open up your drawers and that long-forgotten folder. You might be surprised at what you will find.
This politically and aesthetically audacious project is only partly realised. The various segments do not communicate with each other in an affective way, and some of the developments are very difficult to follow unless you are familiar with Turkish politics. The political contextualisation is very thin. There is barely a mention of Turkey’s autocratic Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, an explanation of how he catalysed the nation’s descent into authoritarianism, and whether he was connected to the suppression of the 2013 Protests (Erdogan took office in 2014). At times, the visual informality often slips into banality. The outcome is a film with a lot to say, that doesn’t say it as loud and clear as it should.
Seen Unseen: An Anthology of (Auto)Censorship just premiered at CPH:DOX.
