Ahmet Yildiz, The Movie

In July 2008 I wrote about Ahmet Yildiz, the 26 year-old gay Turk who was murdered by his father in what was described at the time as Turkey’s first “gay honor killing.” Ahmet’s life story has now been turned into a movie.



Caner Alper, the writer and other co-director of “Zenne,” was also a friend of Yildiz’s. Alper said before he died, Yildiz often spoke about receiving death threats from his family, who were trying to “cure” him of his homosexuality. Court documents show Yildiz reported these death threats to the Turkish authorities. In an interview with CNN this week, the filmmakers said they hoped their film would force Turkish society to debate hate crimes that target victims based on gender, religion, ethnicity or sexual identity. “Death and murder is still on the agenda of our country. We can’t get rid of this mentality,” said Binay. “People need to tolerate each other. They need to understand that different identities can live next to each other without disturbing each other.”