The City and the Messiah

July 2022 - March 2023
IZMIR

The documentary The City and the Messiah aims to consider the restored house and surroundings of Sabbatai Zevi, a Sephardic Jew born in Izmir in 1626 and proclaimed himself as the messiah and review it as a place of memory. Based on the venue and the interviews to be held in the region, it aims to reflect on the traces of Sabbatai Zevi and Jewish culture, their associations, the messiah phenomenon and the ways we see history.

Sabbatai Zevi is a Sephardic Jew born in Izmir in 1626 and proclaimed himself the long-awaited Jewish messiah in the 1660s. Zevi's claim to be the messiah had a great impact on Jewish communities, who were struggling with epidemic and exile conditions all over the world at that time, due to the belief in messianism in the history of Judaism. Zevi is not only a figure who was not adopted by the Jewish community, but has also been one of the focal points of racist discourses and conspiracy theories in Turkey. Located in the İki Çeşmelik region of İzmir, the house where Zevi is thought to have lived has been recently restored. This house is waiting to be opened as a museum within the ruins of the Agora.

This house is also located in a culturally and class layered urban space. Being one of Izmir's oldest commercial centres and Jewish quarters, the area is planned to be transformed into a touristic area with the synagogues actively operating today and the museum complex including Zevi's house. It is also a place where refugees live heavily. Zevi's house looks both at the traces of the Jews who settled in this region more than five hundred years ago, and at the streets where immigrants who came to escape political and economic oppression walk today. During the shootings to be made between July and September, Directors Aylin Kuryel and Raşel Meseri will have conversations with those working in institutions active in the restoration of the house, workers working in the construction process, those working in the museum complex in which the house is located, those who come to visit, residents living in this part of the city, shopkeepers and passers-by. Kuryel and Meseri will try to open the subjects of messianism, being from Izmir, being the migrant, Jewish identity, being the other in Turkey, being the other for the other. The main goal of the documentary is to open a space for reflection on urban memory and cultural heritage by following these issues and trying to capture everyday moments, words, gestures and what is left outside of official history.

Aylin Kuryel

Aylin Kuryel graduated from Boğaziçi University, Department of Psychology. She completed her master's and doctorate degree in the Cultural Analysis (ASCA) program of the University of Amsterdam. She works as an lecturer at the University of Amsterdam. She is one of the contributors of Resistance and Aesthetics in the Age of Global Uprisings (Iletisim Publications, 2015), Being a Jew in Turkey: A Dictionary of Experience and There Is Trouble: Essays on the Concept of Trouble. Her documentaries include Taboo (2009), Welcome Lenin (2016) and Baştan Başa (Through and Through) (2018), Bir Savunma (Defense) (2021), Her Şeyin İçinden Geçen Şey (The Thing That Goes Through Everything) (2022).

Raşel Meseri

Born in Izmir, Raşel Meseri graduated from Fine Arts Faculty Cinema-TV department, made various documentaries and short films. She has written plays, children's books and novels. Six books of the series of children's books have been published so far, titled Can’lı ve Işıltı’lı Maceralar, most of which have been published by Habitus Publishing. Her novels, Köpekbalıklarının Kayıp Şarkıları (Lost Songs of Sharks) (2018), Kırık Şehir (Broken City) (2020) and Küt Oynayan Kadınlar (Women Playing Smack) (2021) were published by Alfa Publications. She has a "tale of resistance" called Pen Parkta, published in three languages in Turkey and bilingual in the Netherlands, and she is one of the editors of the book Being Jewish in Turkey: A Dictionary of Experience published by İletişim Publishing. In 2021-22, children's book Şekillerin Oyunu (The Game of Shapes) is published by Hippo Publishing and Haydi Rapunzel Bir Taş Daha! (Come on Rapunzel, One More Stone!) and Pen Ormanda was published by Obiçim Publications.

This page is published on 23 June 2022.