BALKANCISCO

Tuğrul Sarıkaya | Turkey / USA 2023 | 66’ | OV with english subtitles

This documentary explores the extremely vibrant Balkan music scene in the San Francisco Bay Area and shows how the sounds of Southeast Europe transcend borders and bring people together. The film is narrated by Duygu, a young woman from Turkey living in self-imposed exile. As we watch her search for traces of familiarity in her new surroundings, we discover with her an ever-growing scene in which community is upheld in many ways: in numerous concerts and dance events, but also through workshops in the forest and, last but not least, through cooking together.

And so we see confirmed what we should always have known about living cultures: something happens when concrete curiosity produces active exchange and active exchange produces new hybrid forms, e.g. – as can be admired here – between Balkan Beat and rap! n other words: this is a playful overview of a scene and its structures, in which a fair amount of ethnomusicological ambition is hidden.

With Ismael Lumanovski, Roman Havası, Danny Du Uy Cao, Deuce Eclipse, Beats Antique, Kalenin Bayır Düzü, Elija Badua and many more.