Rewinding Tapes of Migration

Date: Wednesday 19 November 2025
Time: 16:30 - 20:00
Location: Fenix Museum, Fenix Plein, Paul Nijghkade 5, 3072 AT Rotterdam
Language: English

Join us for an inspiring afternoon in Rotterdam, where Fenix Plein and DutchCulture bring together makers, advisors, and existing networks to explore different ways in which migration stories can be replayed. We invite makers and cultural professionals who are keen to connect, collaborate, and explore ways of working across borders.

The occasion for this event is the intertwined history of the Netherlands, Germany, and Türkiye. Marking sixty years since the 1964 guest worker agreement between the Netherlands and Türkiye, and acknowledging the parallel and earlier migration history between Germany and Türkiye in 1961, we want to continue this legacy by fostering new artistic connections across borders. Together, we’ll look at how stories of movement, identity, and community can inspire creative practices and international partnerships. Through good practice examples and conversations with each other, we’ll discover how the topic of migration in your creative practice can help to record histories and build new bridges.

This event is also a great opportunity to discover how DutchCulture can support you on your journey to working and collaborating internationally - this time with a focus on Germany and Türkiye.

The session will be followed by a film screening of three short films themed around migration in collaboration with IFFR.

16:15-16:30 Walk-in
16:30-18:00 Session by DutchCulture on international collaborations

• Welcome by Fenix Plein programmer Ece Meşe
• Introduction by DutchCulture advisors Astrid Mörk and Dicle Gülşahin
• Conversation with filmmaker Jochem de Vries about Dutch-Turkish cultural collaborations
• Introduction to VAHA by programme advisor Serra Özhan-Hocaoglu
• Fishbowl conversation with all participants
• Wrap up

18:00-18:30 Networking among makers/creatives
 

Public Screening
18:30-19:30 Film screening in collaboration with IFFR

• YUGOTRANSPORT – Wir sitzen alle im selben Bus by Boris Hadžija
• Being Strong Is Hard by Leyla Yenirce
• Bus from Adana by Jochem de Vries, followed by a short Q&A

19:30-19:50 Time to mingle
20:00 Plein closes

Jochem de Vries is a screenwriter, director and producer known for his socially engaged, voyeuristic films. After studying at the HKU and the Andrzej Wajda Master School, he made his international breakthrough with Missen (2009), nominated for the Palme d'Or at Cannes. His films Trans Siberian Voices, Cornea, Aziza and Bus From Adana have won various international awards. In addition to his film work, De Vries gives workshops at schools and asylum seekers' centres and founded an inclusive primary school in Amsterdam. As a filmmaker, he tells stories about identity, migration and human connection for a wide audience.

Serra Özhan-Hocaoglu is the Co-Managing Director at zusa gGmbH (Berlin), where she supports the design and implementation of a number of transnational cultural exchange programmes, like the VAHA programme and zusa connects initiative, etc. Previously, she worked at Anadolu Kültür (Istanbul) for 7.5 years, coordinating Tandem Turkey and other international projects. Active in arts and culture since 2005, she is also a curator and co-founder of Dystopic Symptoms artist initiative, with whom she took part in several international festivals and projects. Serra holds an M.A. in Contemporary Art Theory from Goldsmiths College and B.A. in Sociology from Koc University.

YUGOTRANSPORT – Wir sitzen alle im selben Bus | Boris Hadžija | Germany | 2023 | 23'
Thirty years after Yugoslavia vanished in bloodshed, workers from all the successor states unite again. But this time not over communist utopian ideals, but under capitalist reality – in the bus that is taking them to seasonal work in the promised land of Germany. But what happens when that bus falls by the wayside? Maybe a little song will help, in this contemporary gastarbeiter comedy with a strong feminist undercurrent by Boris Hadžija.

Being Strong Is Hard | Leyla Yenirce | Germany | 2022 | 4'
Being Strong Is Hard comprises a barrage of images of Kurdish activists, journalists and fighters – mostly women – facing the camera, often smiling. Scored to rapid electronic music, this visual onslaught echoes the sensory overload of contemporary media. While the similarity of portraits, whose low resolution raises its own political questions, encourages instant parsing, the sight of young women in uniform slows down our perception, inviting us to interrogate the meaning of these smiles and poses.

Bus from Adana | Jochem de Vries | The Netherlands | 2023 | 18'
This short film by refugee filmmakers’ collective Buddy Film Foundation tells the story of Dutch Aïsha, who escapes the clutches of Islamic State with her three-year-old daughter. On the bus from the Turkish border town Adana to Istanbul, she finds it hard to trust her fellow travellers. What does this man want who comes to bum a cigarette? Or that nice lady in the toilet? Next, she arrives in Istanbul and another reality forces itself upon her.

Fenix is a new art museum in Rotterdam that shares stories of migration. In Fenix, you find stories about love and farewell, home and feeling at home, navigating identity or seeking happiness. Stories from the past and present, from here and elsewhere. Plein is a new covered city square inside the building, where Fenix creates the programming in collaboration with the people of Rotterdam.

International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) presents a leading international film festival and year-round programme that deepens appreciation of cinema in all its forms, broadens and diversifies audiences, and creates opportunities for independent filmmakers and artists from around the globe. IFFR seeks to expand, enrich and challenge people’s views of the world and each other through film and audiovisual arts.