2024, Türkiye, 50' ֍ Dir. Bahriye Kabadayı Dal
(Turkish/Greek; Greek/Turkish subtitles)
A Journey to the Black Sea explores the life and music of young musician Adem Ekiz. Ekiz lives in Sürmene, Trabzon, Turkey with his wife and three children. A Muslim whose native language is Romeika, the language of the Pontic Greeks of the eastern Black Sea, Ekiz is quietly forging connections between peoples through his music. He is a virtuoso on the kemenche, a musical instrument native to the Black Sea, and he performs in places where Pontic Greeks are found, in Turkey and around the world. Bahriye Kabadayı Dal’s documentary focuses on the unifying power of music, as Ekiz strives to build cultural bridges through traditional songs, which he sings in both Greek and Turkish. A Journey to the Black Sea had its European on-line premiere in July during the Ischia (Italy) Global Film Festival. Its premiere in Turkey will be at Foça Film Days 2024.
Bahriye Kabadayı Dal (b. 1977, Istanbul) graduated from the Marmara University Faculty of Communication’s Department of Radio, TV and Cinema.
Her first feature-length documentary, “A Bridge at the Edge of the World” (Devrimci Gençlik Köprüsü)”, was recognized by the Turkish Film Critics Association (SİYAD) as the Best Documentary Film of 2008. In 2013, Bahriye founded her own production company, Tarçın Film, which produced several documentary films, including "The Mysterious Stones of Hakkari", which was screened at the first Foça Film Days in 2018. Together with Burak Dal, she has produced a number of films to raise awareness about the threats to the marine environment, including the 2022 WWF Turkey documentary "Guardians of the Seas". Her the project "A Journey to the Black Sea" was selected for workshopping at the international Doc-Stories Black Sea Workshop (Georgia, Romania, and Amsterdam/IDFA) in 2012, BSB’s Pitch-in Istanbul in 2015, and İKSV’s Istanbul Biennial Work Program in 2019. Bahriye is currently writing a master’s thesis on Children & Documentaries at the Marmara University Institute of Social Sciences. She is also the current board chair of the Association of Documentary Filmmakers in Turkey (BSB), which she has been a member of since 1997.
