double bill #11

In places where desire is policed, a woman’s body becomes a battleground—between tradition, survival, and the hope for freedom. Bülent Öztürk’s Houses With Small Windows and Hoda Taheri’s Mother Prays All Day Long show the cost of wanting more than the world allows.

Öztürk tells the story of a young Kurdish woman whose forbidden love seals her fate. The rural landscape, vast and indifferent, surrounds a tragedy carried out in the name of “honour.” This is not just a portrait of violence, but of a community trapped in the walls it builds around its daughters.

Taheri, both maker and protagonist, shifts to Berlin, where she navigates asylum procedures. Her dependence on Magdalena—who promised marriage as salvation—is shaken as life grows more complicated. Here, love is neither forbidden nor free; it is entangled with legality and fear. All of these women navigate impossible boundaries—between love and survival.