Director
Caner Alper and Mehmet Binay
Year
2012
Run Time
99
min
Country
Turkey
Language
Turkish
PROGRAM Time
minutes
CONTENT WARNING:
German photographer Daniel Bert, who comes to Istanbul to do photo shoots, meets Can, who is a zenne at a nightclub, and Ahmet, who comes from a conservative eastern family.
This film is presented in Turkish with English subtitles.
Zenne Dancer is inspired by the true characters and stories of Zenne Can and Ahmet Yildiz, who was murdered by his father July 18, 2008 in Istanbul. It is the contemporary story of three unlikely friends: Ahmet, a hyper-masculine gay (bear); Can, a male belly dancer (Zenne); and Daniel, a German photo-journalist. One day they meet Daniel, a German photojournalist newly arrived in Istanbul. The three of them forge a friendship and Daniel and Ahmet grow even closer, as a relationship begins to blossom between them. Soon, Ahmet’s hyper conservative family, suspicious and fearful of Ahmet`s sexual orientation, has hires a man to spy on him When Ahmet’s family discovers Ahmet’s plans to leave the country, they decide to defend their family honor. Zenne Dancer is an honest and unflinching look at living opening gay in Turkey, confronted by a systemic, institutionalized and culturally embedded homophobia.
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