Director Alper: “Kurds, you are not alone”

At the 76th Berlin Film Festival, the festival’s top prize, the Golden Bear, was awarded to Ilker Çatak for his film Sarı Zarflar (Yellow Envelopes).

Emin Alper was deemed worthy of the Silver Bear for his film Kurtuluş (Salvation).

In his speech at the festival, Emin Alper said: “The most terrible kind of loneliness is the loneliness you experience while suffering.”

Director Alper continued: “When you are losing your rights, day by day, being shot with bullets bought with your own taxes, bombed by those who do not even see you as human, in those moments you are completely alone.

But when you see that no one cares about you and no one thinks of you, you become the loneliest person in the world. So what we can do here is to break the silence and remind them that they are truly not alone. Palestinians living and dying under the most horrific conditions in Gaza, you are not alone.

People of Iran suffering under oppression, you are not alone. Kurds, who have been struggling for their rights in Rojava and the Middle East for nearly a century, you are not alone. And finally, my people, you are not alone.

My dear friend Çiğdem, who has been in prison for four years, you are not alone. Tayfun, Can, and Mine, you are not alone either. Osman Kavala, imprisoned for eight years; Selahattin Demirtaş for nine years; Istanbul Metropolitan Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu and all the other mayors currently in prison — you are not alone.

We are not alone. We will not remain alone.”