LET US BELIEVE
Experimental film | Turkey 2025 | 17’| English with subtitles in Turkish, French
Set at the archaeological site of Tell Atchana, ancient Alalakh, amid the remains of a temple once dedicated to Ishtar, Let Us Believe is a site-specific dance film shaped by the full recitation of the poem Let Us Believe in the Dawn of the Cold Season by Forough Farrokhzad. The poem becomes the film’s sonic spine, unfolding a parallel emotional landscape of longing, loss, faith, and quiet rebellion.
Bodies emerge from dust as if unearthed from memory, invoke absent rituals through voice and circular motion, fracture and shed layers of dry clay under the weight of presence, and ultimately inscribe new traces through collective adobe construction. While the landscape speaks of ancient divinity and deep time, the poem draws the film into an intimate, contemporary interiority, transforming the ruins into a space of fragile belief and emotional survival.
Through the encounter between archaeological permanence and poetic vulnerability, Let Us Believe becomes a meditation on how faith, whether in gods, seasons, love, or the future, endures in bodies, in earth, and in voice.
Direction & Cinematography Michael Maurissens
With Duru Karasalih, Bade Kerik, Aydeniz Mercan, Hazal Aydın, Nevra Atahan, Süleyman Demirkol, Didem Koban
Based on the poem ‘Let us believe in the dawn of the cold season’ by Forough Farrokhzad
Funded by Goethe Institut - Spaces of culture/kulturicinalan
Hosted and coordinated by Alan Antakya
Special thanks to
Murat Akar, Müge Bulur and the Aççana Höyük Alalakh excavation team
Abdullah Dinç, Director of Hatay Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism
The project Kültür için Alan is initiated by Goethe-Institut, the Consulate General of Sweden in Istanbul, the Embassy of the Netherlands and the Institut francais de Turquie; in cooperation with Anadolu Kültür and Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (IKSV).
LET US BELIEVE
Experimental film | Turkey 2025 | 17’| English with subtitles in Turkish, French
Set at the archaeological site of Tell Atchana, ancient Alalakh, amid the remains of a temple once dedicated to Ishtar, Let Us Believe is a site-specific dance film shaped by the full recitation of the poem Let Us Believe in the Dawn of the Cold Season by Forough Farrokhzad. The poem becomes the film’s sonic spine, unfolding a parallel emotional landscape of longing, loss, faith, and quiet rebellion.
Bodies emerge from dust as if unearthed from memory, invoke absent rituals through voice and circular motion, fracture and shed layers of dry clay under the weight of presence, and ultimately inscribe new traces through collective adobe construction. While the landscape speaks of ancient divinity and deep time, the poem draws the film into an intimate, contemporary interiority, transforming the ruins into a space of fragile belief and emotional survival.
Through the encounter between archaeological permanence and poetic vulnerability, Let Us Believe becomes a meditation on how faith, whether in gods, seasons, love, or the future, endures in bodies, in earth, and in voice.
Direction & Cinematography Michael Maurissens
With Duru Karasalih, Bade Kerik, Aydeniz Mercan, Hazal Aydın, Nevra Atahan, Süleyman Demirkol, Didem Koban
Based on the poem ‘Let us believe in the dawn of the cold season’ by Forough Farrokhzad
Funded by Goethe Institut - Spaces of culture/kulturicinalan
Hosted and coordinated by Alan Antakya
Special thanks to
Murat Akar, Müge Bulur and the Aççana Höyük Alalakh excavation team
Abdullah Dinç, Director of Hatay Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism
The project Kültür için Alan is initiated by Goethe-Institut, the Consulate General of Sweden in Istanbul, the Embassy of the Netherlands and the Institut francais de Turquie; in cooperation with Anadolu Kültür and Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (IKSV).