Interview between RedCut and Güliz Saglam

She is an independent documentary filmmaker and a video-activist. Her work consists of independent documentaries on social issues like immigration, female workers’ strikes and resistance from different parts of Turkey, as well as solidarity campaigns of women’s organizations with female workers’ resistance movements and the encounters between feminism, female labor and peace activism by women. She documents the campaigns and demonstrations of feminist movement’s and women’s initiative for peace. She is involved in the organization of Documentarist Istanbul Documentary Days. She takes part in different video-activism collectives. Her films have been screened internationally at various film festivals. Her first feature documentary film A Dream School in the Steppes has received many awards, including Best Documentary Award of 47th Film Critics Association of Turkey, 9th Boston Turkish Documentary and Short Film Competition and 7th Documentarist Istanbul Documentary Days FIPRESCI Award.

Redcut’s interview with Mehrnoush Alia

Redcut’s interview with Mehrnoush Alia

Mehrnoush Alia is an Iranian filmmaker and playwright.  She received her MFA from Columbia University Film Program and her BA in Film Studies and Comparative Literature from UC Berkeley. Her debut feature, 1001 Frames, premiered at Berlinale 2025 and is the official...

Conversation between Mike Figgis and Mania Akbari, “Part One” 

Conversation between Mike Figgis and Mania Akbari, “Part One” 

Mania: As I was checking my flight seat numbers from London to Venice, my eyes fell upon a tall, muscular man with bright, curly hair and fair skin. I felt like I had seen him somewhere before. After hesitating for a moment, I passed by him, unsure if I was mistaken,...

On the Precarity of Freedom

On the Precarity of Freedom

By Amin Pakparvar Libido can be regarded as the emotional force underlying human expressions of love, originating from an individual's affection toward oneself and subsequently extending to the external world. Loving another person or object represents an expansion of...

Unsettled Reality, Tomorrow’s Imagination

Unsettled Reality, Tomorrow’s Imagination

Markéta Jakešová & Mania Akbari This selection of seven films by young Iranian women filmmakers explores the fragile and shifting nature of contemporary existence through their unique perspectives. With intimate narratives and striking visuals, these works...

Women in the Field of Struggle”: Which Women in Which Field?

Women in the Field of Struggle”: Which Women in Which Field?

By Pegah Pezeshki The following text is based on nine films by Arab women filmmakers under the title "The Place of the Arab Woman in Struggle," written by Pegah Pezeshki. This collection, curated by Giovanni Vimercati, was presented at Cryptofiction. When we think of...

Andrea Luka Zimmerman, a Wayfaring Stranger

Andrea Luka Zimmerman, a Wayfaring Stranger

by Armin Etemadi Andrea Luka Zimmerman’s cinema is basically about the empty and un-narrated spaces between the lines. She puts her finger on outcast human beings of whom no traces can be seen in the media, in history, or in any other marketable material, as though...

Interview with Nina Menkes by Mania Akbari 

Interview with Nina Menkes by Mania Akbari 

Editor: Marketa Jakesova  Considered a cinematic feminist pioneer and one of America’s foremost independent filmmakers, Nina Menkes has shown widely in major international film festivals including multiple premieres at Sundance, the Berlinale, Cannes, Rotterdam,...

There Is So Much I Want to Say

There Is So Much I Want to Say

  by: Markéta Jakešová Introduction Cryptofiction, founded by Mania Akbari, with the curator Giovanni Vimercati, presents a selection of nine diverse films, all created by women directors with a Middle Eastern background that address issues related to Palestine...