The Crossroads Turkey

It is easy to steer a government when things are going well. But what happens when the path becomes less clear? What happens when countries face a fork in the road? In this documentary, filmmaker Samuel George visits Turkey in the tumultuous months following an attempted coup in July of 2016. The film investigates a country at political, economic, and social crossroads. Featuring interviews with influential members of Parliament, conversations with external experts such as Jeffrey Sachs, Daron Acemoglu, Vali Nasr, and Soner Cagaptay, meetings with small town mayors, government-affiliated business leaders, local professors, and more, the documentary is on location from the streets of Istanbul to the Turkish border with Iraq and Syria.

About the Film

The film is divided into three sections, with the first reviewing the country’s most pressing fault lines as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan consolidates power. A second section dives into the contours of the country’s strong economic performance and investigates how that success could come under pressures due to internal factors, such as a lack of growth sustainability, as well as external factors such as an in-pouring of refugees from the Middle East. Finally, a third section considers the combustible conditions surrounding the rights and representation of Turkey’s Kurdish minority. Together, the three sections bring the viewer to the frontline of a true global hotspot.