09/07/2025 - Turkey’s top script platform brings together 12 projects for a week of intensive development, co-production networking and industry outreach in Istanbul

Director Belkıs Bayrak, who is taking part with A Brighter Word Than Bright (© Kathleen McInnis)

The seventh edition of 12 Punto, Turkey’s largest script-development and co-production platform, is set to run from 13-20 July in Istanbul. Organised by TRT, the initiative continues to support the development of auteur-driven and internationally viable Turkish films.

Throughout the week, the selected filmmakers will work with renowned script consultants, participate in pitch preparation workshops, and meet one-on-one with representatives from film funds, co-production markets, festivals and sales companies. The winners will be announced on 18 July, with prizes including the TRT Co-Production, Pre-Buy and Project Development Awards, as well as the TRT International Co-Production Award and the TRT Short Film Production Award.

This year’s selection once again reflects the thematic and stylistic diversity of contemporary Turkish cinema. Yüksel Aksu’s The Postman’s Secret is a nostalgic romance set in 1959, where a shy postman falls for a young woman whose heart he wins through anonymous letters. Of Calves and Men by Fikret Reyhan is a darkly humorous drama set in a rural Anatolian village, where a petty feud between two neighbours escalates into a deadly conflict. Adnan Güler’s The Rooms follows a displaced father and son trying to rebuild their lives in Istanbul after the 2023 earthquake.

In Second Feature Film Project, Okan Açmak turns his lens on the creative struggle of a once-celebrated director whose second film is held hostage by indecision, online manipulation and absurdist twists. Harun Korkmaz’s Human Human weaves together black humour and social satire as a mortician and a midwife uncover a disturbing child-trafficking network in their dying village. Ümit Köreken’s An Accident is a slow-burning psychological drama about grief, guilt and moral reckoning after a tragic car crash shatters a family, prompting its protagonists to confront silence and truth as two irreconcilable paths.

With For Rent, Okan Akgün offers a character-driven portrait of a young man who becomes emotionally entangled with the abandoned home of a comatose woman. Belkıs Bayrak’s A Brighter Word Than Bright tells the story of Osman, a man trying to piece his life back together after serving time for a crime he didn’t commit. In All the Tired Horses, Burak Çevik crafts a bold historical-fiction hybrid in which an Istanbul-based petty thief is haunted by visions of a past life as an Ottoman soldier-turned-revolutionary.

Tarık Ötgen’s Assumption is a tense chamber drama where a man haunted by his potential role in a child’s death seeks forgiveness from the boy’s family. In Green Leafy Red Tomato, Kaan Atilla Taşkın blends magical realism with emotional introspection, weaving together three intergenerational stories of loss and longing. Finally, Baran Mayda’s Confrontation unfolds as a gritty psychological crime-drama in which a police officer with memory loss investigates the car crash that killed his family.

Here is the list of projects selected for the upcoming edition of 12 Punto:

Second Feature Film Project - Okan Açmak (Turkey/Germany)
Producers: Merve Sena Kılıç Haznevi (MOSES Film,19:30 Film ve Sanat), Bombay Film

For Rent - Okan Akgün (Turkey)
Producer: Suat Köçer (Film Arası Yapımcılık)

The Postman’s Secret - Yüksel Aksu (Turkey)
Producers: Yüksel Aksu, Ahmet Necati Erdem, Osman Enes Yakut (Makara Film, Ns Yapım Ltd Şti)

A Brighter Word Than Bright - Belkıs Bayrak (Turkey/Kosovo)
Producers: Belkıs Bayrak, Murat Yaşar Bayrak (Saba Film), Valmira Hyseni

All the Tired Horses - Burak Çevik (Turkey/Serbia/Croatia/France/Germany)
Producers: Burak Çevik (Fol Film), Stefan Ivancic, Vanja Vascarac, Guillaume de Seille, Marcos Kantis

The Rooms - Adnan Güler (Turkey)
Producer: Ahmet Edebali (35mm Stüdyo Hizmetleri ve Ticaret Ltd Şti)

An Accident - Ümit Köreken (Turkey/Germany)
Producers: Nursen Çetin Köreken (Drama Film Prodüksiyon), Silvana Santamaia (SoilFilms GMBH)

Human Human - Harun Korkmaz (Turkey)
Producer: Harun Korkmaz (Korkmaz Medya Film)

Confrontation - Baran Mayda (Turkey)
Producer: Burhan Gün (Fikrigün Film)

Assumption - Tarık Ötgen (Turkey)
Producers: İpek Erden, Tarık Ötgen (Vayka Film), Atetot Film

Of Calves and Men - Fikret Reyhan (Turkey)
Producer: Nizam Reyhan (FNR Film)

Green Leafy Red Tomato - Kaan Atilla Taşkın (Turkey)
Producer: Mahnaz Tafaghi (Ayvision Films)