While accepting the award, director Berke Baş said: “We think that this award will make the subject matter of the film and the struggle for justice more visible. Thank you very much for recognizing us with this award. We were also aware that we were among strong competition; I congratulate all my director friends and their crew. In the last two days of the Istanbul Film Festival, we have seen that this case which the judiciary is trying to cover up will not be closed. We received very good reactions and the belief that we can achieve something with this film came back. This struggle doesn’t come down to the courts, I think we all need to get involved in the struggle to prevent the statute of limitations on these cases. Sometimes it can happen even by watching the movie.”

Producer Enis Köstepen expressed his gratitude to the relatives of the disappeared who accompanied them during the screenings for the past two days and to the Saturday Mothers during his speech:

“We were able to make this documentary thanks to Hafıza Merkezi. The idea for this film came up during a meeting Hafıza Merkezi organized to discuss the cases that follow gross human rights violations. Abdülaziz Altınkaynak, the father of Davut Altınkaynak, one of the disappeared featured in our documentary, and his sister Emine Altınkaynak are here, I send my greetings to them. Erdal Kuzu, the lawyer of the Dargeçit trial, is not with us, but we would not have been able to make this documentary if he had not made room for us on the seats in his car. But another lawyer, Veysel Vesek, a close friend of Erdal’s and someone who has followed the Dargeçit trial and other forced disappearance cases, has been with us for the past two days, I send my greetings to him too.

I thank the jury very much for their evaluation. And I thank Evrim because she left no need for me to make a speech for Çayan and Çiğdem. They are two filmmakers who have always stood by the relatives of the disappeared. Their freedom is crucial.

In the coming weeks, the Saturday People will celebrate their 1000th week. They have reclaimed Galatasaray Square, which is very close to here. They are there every Saturday at 12.00 pm. We should all be there. Thank you.”

Directed by Berke Baş and produced by Enis Köstepen, Hold Still was shot between 2018 and 2022. In 1995, seven people were forcibly disappeared in Mardin’s Dargeçit district. The documentary follows the court process of the Dargeçit JİTEM Trial, opened after years of struggle by their relatives, their lawyer Erdal Kuzu, and the Human Rights Association. It focuses on the last five years of the trial, which began in 2015. At a time when we face the risk of the dismissal of cases regarding the gross human rights violations committed in the 1990s due to the 30-year statute of limitations, we aim to raise the voice of the struggle against impunity through Hold Still’s distribution.

Hafıza Merkezi has been monitoring the Dargeçit trial as part of FailiBelli.org since 2015. The course of the trial, including the political atmosphere that made it possible for these indictments to be drafted and how the trajectory changed over time, opens the door to multi-layered debates on impunity, confronting the past, conflict resolution, justice, and the search for truth in Turkey. We hope that Hold Still will contribute to the expansion of these debates and become a part of the memory of the human rights movement as a documentary that honors the resilience of the struggle for this cause.