Don't Let Them Shoot the Kite
(Uçurtmayı Vurmasınlar)

Following the military coup of 12 September 1980 in Türkiye, the then architect Feride Çiçekoğlu spent four years in the women’s prisons of Mamak then Ankara, accused of communist propaganda. In 1985, she recounted her life in detention in a short story that contains “letters written through the mouth of a child”. In 1988, she partnered with Tunç Basaran to write the screenplay of the eponymous film, Don’t Let Them Shoot the Kite. As the portrait of a community of women from different backgrounds and brought together not out of choice by by prison life, the film finds its way to building a resilient and poetic vision, touching on politics through the absurd and satire. JB