Çukurcuma is still a rather sleepy place in the busy Beyoğlu district of Istanbul.
Gentrification is proceeding slowly.The place seems to try to fit to Orhan Pamuk’s plot of the
novel “Museum of innocence”. The real museum is in the neighbourhood.

Between 1970 and 2010, the urban population of the Middle East Region more than quadrupled and is set to more than double again over the next 40 years.

Arthouse Bethanien at the Mariannenplatz in Berlin-Kreuzberg is the result of the
Occupy movement of the 197oth and 198oth in Berlin.

Georg von Rauch was a radical anarchist and part of the Occupy-movement. He got
shot on the 4th of December 1971 at the Eisenacher Strasse in Berlin by the Police
trying to arrest him.

1970 the hospital Bethanien was closed, a demolition was prevented by the
uprising of the neighboorhood. The “Martha-Maria-House” had been the hostel for
the hospitals nurses. It got invaded by the occupy movement in 1971 an was
renamed into “Georg-Rauch-Haus”.

On the 19th of April 1972 there was a Razzia in the “Georg-Rauch-Haus”. The
musicians of the Group “Ton-Steine-Scherben” performed the “Georg-Rauch-
Haus-Song.

The public protest resulted into the “Culture-and Youth-Project” in the
Rauch-Haus. The Berlin Senate decided one year later for an Arthouse in the
main building of the Bethanien Complex.

“Ton Steine Scherben” was the most listened Occupy Band. Did you know, that Claudia Roth was there PR Manager in those days? Singer Rio Reiser composed the Rauch-House-Song. This is the first strophe.

“The Mariannen Square, was blue, we won’t get it like that again. So much Police was around.
Mensch Meier had to cry, probably because of the tear gas. He was asking someone, what’s up here? Do we celebrate something? The guy answered. Something like this. We do occupy the Bethanien right now!
Mensch Meier said, you even got late, it was empty the whole time. Life would be so beautiful without the police. The policechief was shouting: do empty the Maraiannen Square immediately. My pushstick guards need space to beat you all up. The people in the occupied house shouted: we won’t go out.Ypu won’t get us out from here. This is our house. Why don’t you through out Schmidt, Press and Bosch (building tycoons from Berlin in those days) out of Kreuzberg?”

The refrain: “this is our house” was the most popular slogan of the occupy movement in Germany. After Berlin in all the bigger cities empty houses sentenced do demolition were occupied. The normal population started to feel empathy. Police forces and the government had to compromiese. Later on the first free living communities were built in these houses. Bethanien is an Arthouse eversince.

moving around, at nights during summer Ramadan in Istanbul… the month of fasting, lasting 29 days based on the visual sightings of the crescent moon. While fasting from dawn until sunset you refrain from consuming food, drinking liquids and sexual relations.

The new short film by Blu
an ambiguous animation painted on public walls.
Made in Buenos Aires and in Baden (fantoche)

Blu is the pseudonym of an Italian artist who conceals his real identity. He lives in
Bologna and has been active in street art since 1999.

blublu.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu_%28artist%29

Behzat Ç. / Bir Ankara Polisiyesi – Son Jenerik from ya da film production on Vimeo.

Ya Da Film produced a cute Animation movie about the Turkish success serial Behzat Ç.

The plot of the original serial is playing in Ankara. The screenwriters managed to create some very pure characters. They set up a crime utopia with an alcoholic anti Hero, who has lost everything, but is still trying to practice his own understanding of justice.

Erdal Beşikçioğlu is outstanding as Behzat and also the rest of the cast, some of them rather unknown before, are very successfull in their roles.

Behzat Ç. got the highest money fine ever given in Turkey in June 2012. The production company has to pay about 130.000 Euro for the bad influence of the serial on youngsters approach to alcohol.

The Animation movie underlines the contents of the serial with it’s plenty references to the Western culture of Turkish politics. Very fine work!