Hatay: September 2025
September - December 2025
HATAY, ISTANBUL
Documentary filmmaker İmre Azem's series of documentaries on Hatay, filmed after the 6 February 2023 earthquakes, began with ‘Hatay: 17-24 April 2023’, followed by ‘Hatay: 1-11 September 2023’, ‘Hatay: 5-15 February 2024’ and finally ‘Hatay: 24 December 2024 - 8 January 2025’. By filming the fifth instalment of this series, Azem aims to document the current situation in Hatay, the efforts of the Hatay people to get back on their feet, and the human rights violations occurring during the city's reconstruction process, to make these visible, and to create an archive of Hatay's post-earthquake process in the long term.
This documentary series primarily aims to document, publicise, and raise awareness about the human rights violations, discrimination, and urbanisation processes that threaten nature and human health and destroy historical and cultural assets, which have been ongoing in Hatay since the 6 February 2023 earthquakes during the reconstruction process. However, the long-term goal goes beyond this: it is to learn lessons from the experiences in Hatay before, during, and after the earthquake for potential disasters in other earthquake-prone provinces of Turkey, particularly Istanbul. This encompasses not only physically dilapidated buildings, but also viewing social fragilities as a threat. Disaster-resilient cities are only possible with a solid social structure, not just sturdy buildings. The aim of these documentaries is to convey the lessons learned from the aftermath of the earthquake in Hatay to a wider audience and to ensure that these issues are discussed.
