Ruhi Karadağ: Simurg

Ruhi Karadağ’s film gives insights into the general political conditions and origins of resistance to the attempted introduction of isolation prisons in the year 2000, in which over 12 people died following death fasts.

For the film “Simurg”, the director accompanied six former political prisoners who participated in successful death fasts in resistance to the introduction of F-Type isolation cells in 1996, and who consequence suffered damages to their health − the so-called Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome.

Previously unpublished film shots taken by the prisoners themselves show the phases of resistance in the “death-fast wards” between the years 1996 and 2000, together with the transformation of the prison in Istanbul/Küçükarmutlu into a so-called “death fast house”. Moreover, the last days of Senay Hanoğlu, Zehra Kulaksiz and Gülsüman Dönmez are shown.