The first images are accompanied by a gentle bubbling sound and create a sense of disorientation. A cloudy panorama, a street in the fog, a dark corridor. This ominous exterior stands in contrast to the warmer colour scheme of the apartments where the film’s protagonists spend their time. The three women share similarly traumatising experiences of violence in Jordan; they allude to rape, assault, detention as they speak. In their apartments, they seek refuge from the violence of the outside world.
Helin Çelik does not tell these women’s stories, but rather sketches their post-traumatic situation in impressive, poetic film imagery. Raquel Fernández Núñez’s camera shows their bodies in extreme close-ups: eye sockets marked by insomnia, trembling hands. Their traumas also reveal disturbing thoughts, such as one protagonist’s idea to kill her children to protect them. At the same time, she is seen interacting with them lovingly. Anqa shows how these women struggle not to allow the suffering they have experienced to define them. “I am not the remains,” one of them says. “I exist.”
by Helin Çelik Austria / Spain 2023 Arabic 91’ Colour Documentary Form

Crew

Director Helin Çelik
Screenplay Helin Çelik
Cinematography Raquel Fernández Núñez
Editing Sara Fattahi
Music Nadim Husni, Victor Jann Nasri Bahdousheh
Sound Design Nicolás Tsabertidis
Sound Maitane Carballo Alonso
Production Manager Rebeca Sánchez López
Producers Rebeca Sánchez López, Helin Çelik
Executive Producers Rebeca Sánchez López, Helin Çelik

Helin Çelik

Born in Diyarbakir, Kurdistan, Turkey in 1991, she studied art therapy, comparative literature, theatre and digital media. Helin Çelik lives in Vienna, where she works as an artist and art therapist. Following What the Wind Took Away (2017), Anqa is her second feature-length film.

Filmography

2017 What the Wind Took Away; 75 min. 2018 For a Moment There; 10 min. 2023 Anqa; 91 min.

Bio- & filmography as of Berlinale 2023