Translating Worlds: Translating Ulysses Film Screening and Q&A with Aylin Kuryel and Fırat Yücel

Thursday, February 15, 19:00

As part of the exhibition Translating Worlds, which was on view at Depo until January 27, there will be a screening of Translating Ulysses, a film by Aylin Kuryel and Fırat Yücel, followed by a Q&A with the directors.

About the film
Kawa Nemir is like a walking dictionary of Kurdish language. Whenever he hears a new word or an idiom, he records it and he never forgets. Considering the Kurdish language his home, he wanders from one exile to another. But how to transfer this collective memory into paper? With its vast, infinite range of words, symbols and anti-colonial resonance, James Joyce’s Ulysses becomes an obsession for him. A translation that would incapsulate all the Kurdish words and idioms he collected throughout the years. Exhausted from political prosecutions and language ban, he flees Turkey and takes refuge at Anne Frank’s former house in Amsterdam, now serving as residence for exiled writers. Will he be able to finish the translation of Ulysses and publish it?

2023 • dir. Aylin Kuryel, Fırat Yücel • The Netherlands/Turkey • 70 min. • in Kurdish, Turkish, English, Dutch • with English and Turkish subtitles

Aylin Kuryel completed her PhD on nationalism(s) and image politics in University of Amsterdam’s Literary and Culltural Analysis department, where she currently teaches. She is the editor of the books Cultural Activism: Practices, Dilemmas and Possibilities (Rodopi Press, 2011), Küresel Ayaklanmalar Çağında Direniş ve Estetik (İletişim Publishing, 2015), Türkiye’de Yahudi Olmak: Bir Deneyim Sözlüğü (İletişim Publishing, 2017) ve Sıkıntı Var: Sıkıntı Üzerine Denemeler (İletişim Publishing, 2020). Among her documentary films are A Defense (2021), The Balcony and Our Dreams (2020), CemileSezgin (2020), Head and Tails (2018) and Welcome Lenin (2016).

Fırat Yücel is one of the co-founders of Altyazı Monthly Cinema Magazine. Currently, he’s working as the editor of Altyazı Fasikül: Free Cinema, focusing on freedom of expression in filmmaking. In addition to being a critic, he continues his documentary practice as a film editor and director. Yücel worked as the co-editor and director of the documentaries Welcome Lenin (2016), Only Blockbusters Left Alive (2016), Audience Emancipated: The Struggle for the Emek Movie Theater (2016), Head and Tails (2018) and March 8, 2020: A Memoir (2020). He’s a fellow at BAK’s (basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht) Fellowship for Situated Practice 2023/2024.

Aylin Kuryel and Fırat Yücel work as a duo under the name Image Acts. Their feature-length documentary Translating Ulysses had its world premiere at the 38th DOK.fest München.

For detailed information:
Translating Worlds