Directed by Tugrul Sarikaya
When a young Turkish immigrant arrives in San Francisco, she finds herself inside an ever-growing Balkan music scene and sets out on a quest to explore how the Bay Area became such a hotbed for Balkan music, how it influenced the local music scene, and how music travels across borders. In this joyous, raucous, music-filled documentary, director Tuğrul Sarıkaya’s examines the forces that bring together two regions that are thousands of kilometers apart through the personal stories of musicians from diverse cultural backgrounds. Balkancisco highlights how music transcends borders and unites people across cultures, embodying its director’s belief that “at the core of our cultural expressions lies a sense of shared humanity that transcends boundaries and borders.”
After graduating from the Political Science and Public Administration Departments at Uludağ University, Tuğrul Sarıkaya moved to San Francisco, where he studied Web Development at City College of San Francisco. He also founded his first e-Commerce initiative, Recro Garage, which he later sold to a Houston-based company. His current venture, Dogru Dijital, is an Izmir-based international company specializing in Video Production and Digital Marketing. Balkancisco is Sarıkaya’s first feature-length documentary film. The film has been screened at numerous festivals, winning awards in both Europe and the United States.
