site.btaTurkish Director Eylem Kaftan Presents Film at Sofia MENAR Opening

Turkish director Eylem Kaftan is arriving for the opening of the Sofia MENAR festival on Thursday to personally present her film Whispering Walls. The meeting with the audience will take place on January 21 at the Odeon Cinema, the festival team said on Thursday.

They noted that Kaftan is one of Turkiye’s leading documentary filmmakers, with awards from festivals in Quebec, Malatya, Calgary, Freiburg, Chelsea and Kayseri. Her film Vendetta Song won four awards at North America’s most renowned documentary film festival, Hot Docs in Toronto, including Best Film and the Audience Award.

Whispering Walls portrays Burhan Dogancay, regarded as the father of pop art in Turkiye. Born in Istanbul, he spent almost his entire life living and working in New York. He was fascinated by walls and the stories they tell, seeing them as carriers of the spirit of the city and its people. He used signs, urban debris, fragments of posters and graffiti to create collages that blur the boundary between painting and sculpture.

Ten years after personally presenting Human at Sofia MENAR, Yann Arthus-Bertrand returns this year with the premiere of his new film Nature, which explores the fragile relationship between humankind and the natural world and searches for reconciliation through love, the festival team said.

The premiere of the Pakistani film Songs of the Sufis will be accompanied by a special event on January 31 at the Vlaikova Cinema, where photographer and Arabist Velin Belev will introduce audiences to the world of Sufism and its centuries-old musical tradition conveying a universal message of love.

Another highlight of the documentary programme is Azza by Stephanie Brockhaus, which follows the first female driving instructor in Saudi Arabia and her pursuit of freedom after women were allowed to drive in 2017.

On January 22, the Vlaikova Cinema will screen Life among the Taliban by Siarhei Marchik, winner of the Best Film award at the Warsaw Doc festival, offering a glimpse into everyday life in Afghanistan under Taliban rule, marked by strict laws, prohibitions and quiet acts of resilience.

More than 50 feature, documentary and short films will have their premieres within the Sofia MENAR festival in 2026.