“Films About Conscience” project aims to expose the different colours of conscience via short films produced by both amateurs and professionals.

The project invites everyone and anyone who can get hold of a camera to shoot a short film for 5 minutes at most, with the motto of “Let’s take a look through our conscience”. The first term of the project has been finalized in 2010. The international jury which consisted of Costa Gavras, Georges Moustaki, Harutyun Khachatryan, İbrahim Betil, Lale Mansur, Nebahat Akkoç, Ömer Madra, Rakel Dink, Rela Mazali, Serge Avedikian, Serra Yılmaz, Vaughan Pilikian and Yıldırım Türker selected the best 19 films, these films were put together as a DVD and the DVD’s were submitted to miscellaneous film festivals throughout 2011. Films were screened at İstanbul, Dersim, Gaziantep, Batman, Yerevan film festivals and also in Ankara as part of the events for September 12. They met their viewers in IMC TV as well.

The second term of the project started on March 31, 2011 and ended on December 10, 2011, on the Human Rights Day. Between the dates of March 31 and September 15, 2011, a total of 62 conscience-themed short films were uploaded to the www.filmsaboutconscience.org website by producers from Turkey and other countries. Again between these dates, thousands of people from all over the world watched uploaded films and most of them rated, commented and shared these films. The international jury, which consisted of Arsinée Khanjian, Cüneyt Cebenoyan, Ferzan Özpetek, Hale Soygazi, Nadje Al-Ali and Rakel Dink also evaluated the films.

Top 20 films which took nationalism in education, militarism, hetero-sexism, conscience and many others as a subject are stated below. Some films took the same points from jury and shared the same rank. With the result of another evaluation additional to the general voting, Müge Manuş who directed Sobe was awarded with an incentive scholarship. Besides, directors of the most rated top 3 films by the jury, won a pass card with the support of IKSV (Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts) so that they can watch the all screenings in Istanbul Film Festival for free.

The selected top 20 films according to the votes of the international jury have been announced via the project website and social media on December 10, 2011. The results were shared with the print and broadcast media as well.

Just like the previous term, the selected films will be collected in a DVD and sent to international film festivals to meet their viewers.

You can reach the DVDs of Films About Conscience at Hrant Dink Foundation.