WHAT IF RED RIDING HOOD ENTERS FOREST

‘What if Red Riding Hood Enters Forest’ is my first documentary. And it is very valuable for me that my first documentary is my own story. I’ve never been someone who likes to be in front of the camera. I am someone who always enjoys listening to other people’s stories with my camera in hand. However, this story had come and found me, and not telling it would have been a great injustice first to myself and then to thousands of headscarved women living in Türkiye. So I decided to be on camera and share my own story.

“If Red Riding Hood Enters Forest” tells the story of a young woman’s struggle of being “existential” with a headscarf in the school she had won acceptance to. This was at the Department of Radio, Cinema and Television at Ege University. Until 2015, and even up to today, there has been no proper documentary about banning women wearing headscarves at universites. Documentaries and videos on this topic were always about women who cried and seemed weak on screen. I wanted to break this stereotype. Because showing that I cried while fighting for my right would only make me and other women who struggle like me look weak. However, I was in a very difficult struggle against both the school administration, my classmates and the system, and I felt I should stand strongly for my rights. First of all, the ban was very stupid. Why should I cry? I decided to be strong and instead of crying, I could just make fun of the nonsensical ban.

“If Red Riding Hood Enters Forest” is the story of my struggle against “educated landlords” who see universities as their own farm and act as they please.

It is a work with technical shortcomings, yes, but at a time when there were no quality phones, even handheld cameras were quite large, and I had to film most of the scenes with a hidden camera. In this story, I’d definetly say that content is more important than technique.

Here is the story of my first documentary.