Fidan Ekiz
(Rozenburg, NL, 1976) is a journalist and documentary filmmaker. She interviewed her own parents for her series Veerboot naar Holland (Ferry to Holland), about five Turkish families emigrating to the Netherlands. She followed this up in 2012 with Ik zie een verre reis (I See a Long Journey Ahead), about her sister and two friends who want to return to Turkey. Born and raised in the Netherlands, the girls used to sing along with Dutch crooner Marco Borsato as kids. However, embittered by the aftermath of 9/11, they now read Turkish newspapers, watch Turkish television, and support Turkish football teams. After her journalism studies, Ekiz first worked for the Rotterdams Dagblad daily newspaper. In 2003 she went to Iraq as a reporter, and later became a correspondent in Istanbul for RTL Nieuws, BNR Nieuwsradio, the NMO (a Muslim radio and TV station), and the news agency GPD, among others. Back in the Netherlands she worked as an editor for "Pauw & Witteman," a popular late-night TV talk show, and was a panellist for the women's talk show "Vrouw & Paard". IN 2016, Dutch public television network VARA broadcast her six-part documentairy series De Pen en Het Zwaard, in which she visits journalists in countries where rulers try to silence them.
Past events
The Text of my Life: Nina Polak
Writers present their favourite literary texts and explain why a particular poem, novel excerpt, or song lyric influenced their life and work. Now it's Nina Polak's turn.
Around the World with Umar - Stories from Home
Umar Mirza (My Mosque is just it) talks to writers about migration. The barren cold, the great getting-used-to, we know about those aspects of migration by now. But what goes on beneath the surface? Reggie Baay, Nadia Bouras and Fidan Ekiz offer a rare view of the inside of uprooted lives. With music by the Iranian master percussionist Mohammad Reza Mortazawi. In Dutch.
