Transformation Stories from Akbelen Forest

Original Title: Akbelen Ormanı'ndan Dönüşüm Hikayeleri

Director and Producer: Selen Çatalyürekli

Producer: Zeyneb Gültekin

Production: Nar Film (Turkey)

Development Stage: Financing, Production, Postproduction

Five women defending the Akbelen Forest transform through resistance to a vast coal mine. Told through an ecofeminist lens, the film explores personal change and imagines a just transition from extraction toward regenerative, gender-aware futures.

Selen Çatalyürekli (1987) is a documentarist, social designer and visual artist based in Istanbul, Turkiye. She received her Bachelors degree from Sabancı University’s Social and Political Science program and her Masters degree in Industrial Product Design program from Istanbul Technical University. She has been working as a freelance video director and producer for the last fifteen years. She taught design at Kadir Has University at Art and Design Faculty as a part time instructor. Her areas of focus are transdisciplinary design in public spaces, ecology and urban movements, migrant rights, gender issues, and visualization of memory spaces. She took part in various international art programs, and documentary projects. Her works are displayed in many art venues, in universities and NGOs. 

Zeyneb Gültekin holds a BA in Political Science and International Relations from Marmara University and an MA in Human Rights and Democracy in South-East Europe (ERMA), jointly awarded by the Universities of Sarajevo and Bologna. She has spent over a decade working on human rights and humanitarian issues, with organizations including the International Press Institute (IPI), Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). She is now moving into documentary filmmaking as a producer — bringing the same rigor and commitment to stories about human rights and the environment, and to the communities at the center of them.

Contact Email: catalyurekli.selen@gmail.com