03/30/2026
To mark International Roma Day on April 8, we invite you to a screening of Missed Lives: The Dom People.
The film highlights the experiences of the Dom community in Hatay, one of the most marginalized communities in Turkey. Already facing long-standing social exclusion, the community became even more vulnerable after the devastating earthquakes of 6 February 2023.
Through personal stories and testimonies, the documentary shows life after the earthquakes: loss, hardship, resilience, and survival. It also reveals how discrimination and exclusion become even sharper in times of crisis. More than a documentary about disaster, the film is a call for recognition, equality, and human dignity for communities facing discrimination based on work and descent.
The film has been recognized with several awards, including Best Documentary Film at the Ake Dikhea? International Roma Film Festival in Berlin in 2025.
About the Director:
Director Mehmet Kuyumcu, a member of the Dom community, was born in 1999 in Antakya, Hatay. Like many young Dom, he had to interrupt his education, though he later completed high school and continued his studies in the Department of Social Services at Anadolu University. He turned to filmmaking to tell the stories of his community and document the discrimination, social exclusion, and overlooked cultural heritage of the Dom and Roma communities in Hatay. Through his work, Kuyumcu aims to preserve community memory, strengthen the visibility of the Dom people, document the destruction of Dom and Roma cultural heritage, and encourage future generations of Dom youth to tell their own stories.
The screening will be followed by a Q&A session with the director.
