Jailbirds

Jailbirds is a feminist character-based documentary regarding Dr Rasiha Serdaroglu’s influence on the women’s prison in Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Dr Rasiha Serdaroglu was publicly arrested and jailed for 2 years for allegedly performing anesthesia on women getting abortions past the legal limit of 10 weeks. The documentary will consist of wide shots and talking heads from inside the prison with the main character Dr Rasiha, and interviews with other supporting characters from inside the prison as well as an ex-convict, a lawyer and a psychologist, as well as more creative sequences and editing styles using newsreels.

Dr Serdaroglu is very respected in TRNC as she has been a doctor for many years and doctors are quite high on the odd social hierarchy in TRNC. She was my family’s friend for a very long time and she is happy to take part in the documentary as she knows me quite well so she trusts me. When she was in prison, she was able to improve the conditions for all of its residents such as improving the plumbing systems and the garden to provide better living standards. She also became a prominent character in the prison as her relations with the prisoners especially young women with no family by providing economic and emotional support; when talking to her, she remembers a young women who was in prison for dealing drugs as her parents had kicked her out and she was wishing that her own mother would be more like Dr Rasiha. She is writing a book about her experience in the prison to reveal some of the sensational regulations such as adding alum to the food in order to reduce lesbian relationships. She also talks about how life in prison is very much like how it is presented on media describing the gangs and violence as well as drug trafficking throughout the prison. As part of her initiative to improve the prison further, Dr Rasiha has already been in contact with the internal affairs ministry to provide social care and security for those who come out of prison as currently there is no economic help or housing that is available for them.

The documentary will aim to invigorate conversation regarding the conditions of  the prison and lack of social care in life after prison by interviewing Dr Rasiha, an ex-convict, as well as a woman who is currently in prison as I have been able to get a permit to film inside the prison. Through interviewing three women from different backgrounds I will be able to create an all-rounding narrative of the conditions and effects that prison leaves especially on a woman in a small de-facto state to prove that prisons as a systematic punishment has no effect on rehabilitation and is only a tool to ignore people who may need help from the state – in a corrupted country with very little budget it is interesting to see how much support and recognition these women are given and to see how the society treats them once they are out. The documentary will aim to encourage Dr Rasiha to continue her initiative of introducing a new policy to provide social security by organising a phonecall or a meeting with the internal affairs ministry to discuss the probability of this policy actually coming true – the expected response will be no and this is also an interesting segment in order to show the ignorance of the government officials. This will be a rights-based approach in order to provoke change by cooperating with Bars Association, women’s rights NGO’S such as KAYAD, and individual psychologists with experience on the subject. This will be imperative in order to ethically congregate representations of the main characters as well as the prison itself.