Dialogue in a Basket Film Screening and Q&A with Varduhi Balyan

Thursday, April 18, 19:00

On Thursday, April 18, there will be a screening of Dialogue in a Basket, a film by Varduhi Balyan, followed by a Q&A with the director.

About the film
In the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic in Turkey, curfews kept everyone indoors. This lockdown, dominated by uncertainty and fear, led to an unexpected dialogue between the director, who lives in the Kurtuluş district of Istanbul, and her upstairs neighbour, Aunt Fatma. The basket, which Aunt Fatma often sends up and down during the day for various purposes, created a bridge between two women who did not know each other very well. After a while, the basket began to carry the camera that the two neighbours used to follow each other’s stories. Dialogue in a Basket follows a closeness that develops through conversations from balcony to balcony over coffee. From a shaky and skewed angle, the moving camera records the dialogue that blossoms between two people whose backgrounds and life stories are completely different.

2020 • dir. Varduhi Balyan • 27 min. • in Turkish • with English subtitles

Varduhi Balyan was born in Armenia. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Turkish Studies from Yerevan State University and a Master’s degree from Istanbul Bilgi University, where she wrote her thesis on the Turkey-Armenia normalisation process. She has worked as a coordinator in various civil society organisations. She has been living in Istanbul since 2013. As a journalist, she continues to work in the fields of human rights, democratisation, conflict resolution, minorities and social memory. Balyan is currently a fellow of BAK’s (basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht) Fellowship for Situated Practice 2023/2024 programme with her film Barum: In the Absence of 1.