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Scars of a Putsch

Forum Special 2025
© Coskun Aral
History has left scars on the body of Abidin Ertuğrul, the partner of director Nathalie Borgers. Her film follows these scars back to the Turkey of the 1970s, when Ertuğrul was forced out of the bus taking him to university by a fascist militia and hit by seven bullets. On 12 September 1980, the Turkish military carries out another putsch. The images of rallies and demonstrations give way to footage of mass arrests. In the meantime, the world outside applauds the former chief of general staff and new president Kenan Evren for the neo-liberal reforms that he pushes through. Borgers reconstructs the atmosphere of tension before the putsch and the ever more tangible repression afterwards, drawing lines of connection to the rise of Erdoğan and the authoritarian present. With impressive historical footage from international archives and in conversations full of warmth and openness, Scars of a Putsch traces out the tradition of democratic movements in Turkey, which have endured with great persistence despite all the violence of the state.
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by Nathalie Borgers (Director, Screenplay)
with Abidin Ertuğrul, Nathalie Borgers, Cahit Akçam, Perihan Akçam, Yeter Güneş Austria / Belgium 2025 German, French, Turkish 102' Colour & Black/White World premiere | Documentary form

With

  • Abidin Ertuğrul
  • Nathalie Borgers
  • Cahit Akçam
  • Perihan Akçam
  • Yeter Güneş

Crew

Director Nathalie Borgers
Screenplay Nathalie Borgers
Cinematography Klemens Koscher
Editing Rudi Maerten
Producer Ralph Wieser
Co-Producer Olivier Dubois

Produced by

Mischief Films

Novak Prod

World Sales

Wallonie Image Production / Belgian Docs

Photos

Nathalie Borgers

© Lena_Deinhardstein, Mischief Films, Novak Prod

Nathalie Borgers was born in 1964 in Brussels. Initially, she worked as a journalist for Belgian television (RTBF). She moved to San Francisco in 1987, where she studied radio, film and television, receiving the student award for “Documentary Writing”. She completed her M.A. in 1990. She made several short documentaries with Atriom Productions as director and producer. She worked as an independent filmmaker in Paris from 1991. Since 2011, she has lived in Vienna. She has been teaching the “Concevoir un projet documentaire” (Drafting A Documentary Project) workshop at the Paris film school La Fémis since 2020.

Filmography

2005 Das Arrangement (The Arrangement) 2008 Winds of Sand, Women of Rock 2011 Liebesgrüße aus den Kolonien (Greetings from the Colony) 2015 Fang den Haider (Catching Haider) 2019 The Remains – After the Odyssey 2025 Scars of a Putsch

Bio- & filmography as of Berlinale 2025