Premiering in Competition at the Berlin International Film Festival, Yellow Letters, directed by İlker ÇATAK and written by him alongside Ayda Meryem ÇATAK and Enis KÖSTEPEN, begins as a simple, intimate family story that gradually reveals itself to be far more powerful and troubling.

The opening is shattering in its simplicity. Under the dark lights of a local theatre, Derya steps forward to speak. Played by the superb Özgü Namal, she delivers lines that might be a reflection on country and the silent cry of existence itself. Then a scream, wordless and suspended. In that instant, art becomes a vital expression and evidence, with the film making its thesis clear: in certain climates, even poetry can be dangerous.

Turkey’s politics loom over the story without ever turning into slogans. The film is not preaching, but it does show how control creeps into everyday life through paperwork, accusations, suspensions, and endless waiting, leaving careers stalled and lives in limbo. Director İlker Çatak understands that repression is most devastating when filtered through the domestic sphere.

Derya and Aziz, both respected theatre artists – with Aziz also working as a university lecturer – begin the film in a state of creative harmony. Their home is warm, cluttered with books, scripts, and ideas, a space built by people who still believe art matters. Then comes the incident that changes the couple and their daughter’s lives 180 degrees. Dismissals, financial strain, family pressures; it all crashes down on them at once. The state never declares open war; it simply suffocates them slowly, stripping away the air they need to breathe.

Aziz, portrayed with poignant physicality by Tansu Biçer, internalises the pressure differently than Derya. Where she fights to maintain dignity, he bends and tries to adapt. Their disagreements are not very loud; they are exhausted, practical, heartbreakingly adult. How do you hold onto principles when money is short? How do you raise a child when your livelihood has been revoked?

Their teenage daughter, Ezgi, played by Leyla Smyrna Cabas, represents a generation growing up with fear and caution. She moves through scenes as if practicing how to vanish. In her moments, the film shows its most unsettling idea: repression doesn’t just punish today, it shapes tomorrow.

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Visually, the film is extraordinary. Cinematographer Judith Kaufmann shoots with a steady hand. Interiors are framed with doorways, windows, and partitions, subtly boxing the characters in. Public spaces feel strangely exposed, as if watched. Even when the setting changes, the tension never disappears. Kaufmann’s camera seems to ask: what is inside the frame, and what waits just beyond it?

What makes Yellow Letters so potent is its resistance to positioning Turkey as an isolated case. Though based in a specific history – purges in academia and the arts, artists punished for dissent, careers erased by decree – the film reaches beyond itself.

And then comes the final act, truly unforgettable. During a theatre performance, Aziz strips naked on stage. It could read as humiliation, protest, collapse, or liberation. Perhaps it is all of these at once. His body, suddenly exposed, becomes the last thing the system cannot confiscate. There is power in that vulnerability.

Yellow Letters is a superb film, a rarity in how it combines the personal with the political. The state doesn’t just make laws; it forms marriages, friendships, and even how we occupy a room. In an era when freedom of expression is increasingly fragile, İlker ÇATAK‘s work reminds us that family bonds can be stronger than any political system.

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Written by Maggie Gogler

Featured image courtesy of Berlinale

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