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Working Class
A fictional manifesto by working-class men from Turkey who desire to be more sexually fetishized. Subverting nationalism with the tools of gay pornography, this essay film mocks today’s sexual caution and the art world’s romanticization of the lower classes. Scenes of demolishing buildings merge with the poetic view of a harbor under snow, paralleling the contrast between the aggressiveness of physical labor and the emotional vulnerability of hardworking men. Video, 7', 2025
Feb 161 min read


MeNFT
Beginning with memories of steamy childhood hammams, an oil wrestler retraces the personal history of his hidden desire. A black-and-white fantasy of Oriental male strength turns into a satire on the façade of progressiveness in European queer culture and the art world. This essay film searches for sexual liberty where it is least expected, transforming a national emblem of virility into a fragile choreography of intimacy. Video, 2025, 10' Text, video and editing Nadir Sönmez
Feb 161 min read


Cruising
Outdoor gay sex culture is traditionally preserved in an anonymous park in İstanbul. A low-resolution night, a camera dancing the choreography of cruising, the formal voice-over of a horny narrator, and bodies that imprint their absence. It is an ethnography of macho lust in the dark, spanning from the local to the European. Video, 2024, 6' Text, video and editing Nadir Sönmez Music Mert Kocadayı It is produced for the video series project of the Altyazı Cinema Association wi
Apr 13, 20251 min read


Gay Tourist
Within the scope of SAHA Studio, Nadir Sönmez conducted a research process focusing on gay tourism in the world and produced an installation that incarnates the way his sexuality brought him together with men from different social segments: The Balance Sheet of My Shyness featured touristic pins on a chain suspended from the ceiling, labeled with the occupations of the men with whom he had sexual relations to date. As one of the sociological expansions of this work, a massa
Dec 20, 20242 min read


Bro!
Two men know each other from the gym and they have a conversation about mundanities until their evening is interrupted by a cheated sister and an intrusive delivery guy. The play deals with the erotic and social tension through contemporary themes such as bromance in the context of Turkish masculinity, single people's loneliness in big cities, open relationships' inability to overcome young adult romantic crisis’ or racism towards Arabs in İstanbul. Play, 60', 2024 Writer and
Jan 2, 20231 min read


Peki
Gallery owner Beril and contemporary artist Tilbe meet for a coffee. They talk behind the backs of their acquaintances from the Istanbul...
Jul 20, 20221 min read


Diyarbakır.Tourism Romanticism.Activism
Nadir Sönmez narrates Kurdish LGBTIQ+ activism in Diyarbakır; through autobiographical performance, essay film and documentary theatre....
Jun 15, 20222 min read


New Releases
An unpublished writer wrote an erotic fiction, narrating the love affair between a Turkish woman and a Syrian refugee man. An editor...
Jun 17, 20212 min read


Ama (Film)
Ama offers a sarcastic look at the contradictions and inconsistencies of artists in Istanbul as they attempt to adapt to Western-based...
Oct 30, 20201 min read


Ama (Theatre)
Ama means but in English. It is a conversation piece about art, power, sex and role play in the Turkish intellectual scene. In four...
Sep 15, 20192 min read
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