THIS IS NOT ME

Duration:
93 min

Type:
Documentary

Year:
2022

Director:
Jeyan Kader Gülsen, Zekiye Kaçak

Producer:
Jeyan Kader Gülsen

Country:
Kurdistan (Bakur)

Languages:
Turkish

Subtitles:
English

This is Not Me explores the lives of gay men in Turkey who marry women to conceal their sexuality due to societal and family pressures. The film follows Mustafa, Mehmet, and Yusuf, who migrated to Istanbul from conservative small towns. It delves into their struggles with identity, societal expectations, and dreams, highlighting the impact on the women they marry. Mehmet and Yusuf maintain heterosexual facades in their social circles, trapped and frustrated in their lives.

Jeyan Kader Gülsen  is a documentary film director and producer living between Istanbul, Turkey and Stuttgart, Germany. She completed her post-graduate degree on cinema and media at Germany’s Eberhard Karls Tübingen University. She directed and produced documentaries and programs for both private and public broadcasters, such as ARD, Arte, Deutsche Welle, Pro7/Sat1, RTL. She worked as a documentary director and executive producer for six years at the Al Jazeera Television Channel.

Zekiya Kaçak is a documentary film director with a background in television. She received her bachelor’s degree in journalism from Istanbul University. She also has an Investigative Journalism Certificate from the International Press Associatoin (IPI). She worked at news channel NTV for 12 years. She received awards from the Turkish Journalists Association in 2006 and 2007. After NTV, she worked as a documentary producer-director at the Al Jazeera Television Channel.