Emin Alper's 'Silver Bear' speech: 'Kurds, Osman Kavala, Selahattin Demirtaş, Ekrem İmamoğlu, you are not alone'

At the 76th Berlin Film Festival, while İlker Çatak won the festival's top prize, the Golden Bear, with his film "Sarı Zarflar" (Yellow Envelopes), Emin Alper was awarded the Silver Bear for his film "Kurtuluş" (Liberation).

Turkish directors left their mark on the Berlinale, the international film festival held for the 76th time.

Turkey's Golden Bear journey, which began with "Susuz Yaz" (Dry Summer) by Metin Erksan, one of the most important directors of Turkish cinema, continued in 2010 with Semih Kaplanoğlu's film "Bal" (Honey). Çatak's film "Sarı Zarflar" brought the Golden Bear back to Turkey after a long hiatus.

The full text of Emin Alper's speech is as follows:

"First of all, I would like to thank the Berlinale team for hosting us here, and of course, I would like to thank the jury. This is a great honor for me. I would like to thank my producers, my wonderful cast and crew, and everyone who supported this film.

Our film is about perpetrators who have committed terrible crimes. Throughout the film, I wanted to understand their mindset. At the same time, I tried to understand the situation of the survivors.

I thought about them a lot, and one of the things I learned was this: The most terrible kind of loneliness is the loneliness you experience while suffering. When you are losing your rights day by day, when you are being shot with bullets bought with your own taxes, when you are being bombed by those who do not even see you as human, you are completely alone in those moments.

But when you see that no one cares about you and no one is thinking of you, you become the loneliest person in the world. So, what we can do here is to break the silence and remind them that they are truly not alone. Palestinians living and dying under the most terrible conditions in Gaza, you are not alone.

The people of Iran suffering under oppression, you are not alone. The Kurds, who have been struggling for their rights for nearly a century in Rojava and the Middle East, you are not alone. And finally, my people, you are not alone.

My dear friend Çiğdem, who has been in prison for four years, you are not alone. Tayfun, Can, and Mine, you are not alone either. Osman Kavala, who has been in prison for eight years, Selahattin Demirtaş for nine years, and Istanbul Metropolitan Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, and all the other mayors who are currently in prison. You are not alone.

We are not alone. We will not be left alone. A small note, this is a birthday present for my daughter.

She will turn three soon, and she loves bears."

News Source: 12punto