The Yellow Letters screenplay was written by Çatak together with Ayda Meryem Çatak and Enis Köstepen. The story focuses on Derya and Aziz, a married couple working in the theatre world in Ankara. Both are respected artists—she is an actress and he is a playwright and director—but their lives take a dramatic turn when political pressure begins to affect their careers.
The turning point comes after the premiere of a new play that attracts unwanted attention from authorities. Soon afterward, the couple receive official dismissal notices—printed on yellow paper—that strip them of their jobs and effectively blacklist them from working in their field. The title of the film refers directly to these letters, which symbolize the bureaucratic tools used to silence dissenting voices.
Forced to leave their life behind, Derya and Aziz relocate with their 13-year-old daughter to Istanbul, where they attempt to rebuild their careers and family stability under increasingly difficult circumstances. As the couple struggles with unemployment, social stigma and political surveillance, their marriage also begins to fracture. The film explores how personal relationships are affected when artists find themselves caught in a climate of political repression.
During the Berlinale press conference, Çatak described the film as a reflection on the fragility of democratic systems. He explained that the story was meant to resonate beyond its specific setting in Turkey. According to the director, the film is “a warning about how fragile democracy can be,” and he encouraged audiences to recognize that political pressure on artists and intellectuals is not confined to one country.
The director also discussed the broader message of the film in interviews at the festival, stressing the importance of artistic freedom and warned against restrictions on artistic expression, saying that attempts to limit what filmmakers can say would amount to “blatant state interference in the autonomous exercise of art.”
Leading roles in Yellow Letters are played by Turkish actors Özgü Namal and Tansu Biçer, whose performances anchor the film’s depiction of a family navigating political upheaval.
The film also drew attention for the way it was produced. Although the story is set primarily in Turkey, much of the filming took place in Germany, with locations such as Berlin and Hamburg standing in for Ankara and Istanbul. The filmmakers explained that this approach allowed them to emphasize the story’s universal themes rather than tie it too narrowly to one political context.
For Çatak, the film represents a continuation of themes explored in his earlier work. Born in Berlin to Turkish parents, he studied film directing at the Hamburg Media School and gradually built a reputation within European cinema. His previous films include Once Upon a Time in Indianerland (2017), I Was, I Am, I Will Be (2019) and Stambul Garden (2021). He gained international recognition with The Teachers’ Lounge (2023), which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film and won several major European prizes.
Yellow Letters / Gelbe Briefe (Germany/France/Turkey)
Director: İlker Çatak
Cast: Özgü Namal, Tansu Biçer, Leyla Smyrna Cabas, İpek Bilgin
