My friend produced this documentary film called "Voices Unveiled: Turkish Women Who Dare." It explores the clash of Islam and the West through the lives of three modern Turkish women - a dancer, an artist, and an activist – who struggle to find their own voices in a traditional world. I learned so much from how it's hard to stand up to your generation of oppressed, and it's ok to be any type of woman their hearts desire in their traditional worlds. From the simple headscarf to the body-covering
niqab, this trend is apparent in countries as different as Indonesia and Iran. And while many reports have come up with this change exclusively to growing religious sentiment or to male
oppression, two Turkish researchers are offering an intriguing alternative theory: Wearing the veil is an act of fashion rebellion.
There was a small village in the film that caught my eye. They were a group of women who didn't want to become just servants to their husbands so they opened what we know as a bed and breakfast. They worked together to make this business for themselves and the men were so ashamed. Even their government turned their back on them with funding, pipes for clean sewage, you name it. Yuck! they did it all themselves. But the old ways of their culture got to one of the woman. While shooting one woman got scared and something happens that I can't give away!
The artist in the film took her heritage, traditial rug desigins and researched the definition of all the elements that are on these rugs, and produced them into a more modern look. The process was amazing how she would sketch out an idea then make this giantic pattern and take it to these Turkish woman who know how to hand weave rugs with thier eyes close on their desolate farms, and just weave in the sun till they were finished. I'm talking about those crazy pattern rug with stars and what look like to me oriental designs. Now, they were reversing their minds to weave a new pattern. It was amazing and so beautiful...I want one!
~BELKIS BALPINAR
If you see it at your local Film Festival check it out!
http://www.voicesunveiled.com/
