Introduction
OBA Film & Video Festival is organised by the Institute for Living Stories, in partnership with the ICTMD Study Group on Music and Dance in the Turkic World, and hosted by Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University through its Faculty of Music and Performing Arts and the Faculty of Communication.
Conceived and developed by Sashar Zarif, OBA is an international, artist-led, curated Film & Video Festival and mentorship-based residency dedicated to stories emerging from the Turkic world and its diasporas.
The word oba occupies a distinctive place in the cultural geography of the Turkic world. Historically, an oba is a temporary settlement—a gathering place where people come together through movement, encounter, and shared life. It is where knowledge is passed from one generation to another, memories are carried, stories are exchanged, and cultural practices continue to live.
OBA continues this tradition as a gathering place where stories carried through bodies, voices, songs, dances, rituals, memories, photographs, and archives are listened to with care, shared with generosity, and carried forward through creative practice and new forms of expression.
OBA Film & Video Festival is organised by the Institute for Living Stories, in partnership with the ICTMD Study Group on Music and Dance in the Turkic World, and hosted by Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University through its Faculty of Music and Performing Arts and the Faculty of Communication.
Conceived and developed by Sashar Zarif, OBA is an international, artist-led, curated Film & Video Festival and mentorship-based residency dedicated to stories emerging from the Turkic world and its diasporas.
The word oba occupies a distinctive place in the cultural geography of the Turkic world. Historically, an oba is a temporary settlement—a gathering place where people come together through movement, encounter, and shared life. It is where knowledge is passed from one generation to another, memories are carried, stories are exchanged, and cultural practices continue to live.
OBA continues this tradition as a gathering place where stories carried through bodies, voices, songs, dances, rituals, memories, photographs, and archives are listened to with care, shared with generosity, and carried forward through creative practice and new forms of expression.
Theme
Stories carried through practice, memory, and change.
Some stories are spoken.
Others are sung.
Some are danced.
Others remain in photographs, field recordings, notebooks, rituals, family memories, museum collections, and community archives.
Many have never been told in their entirety.
OBA begins with listening.
Stories reveal themselves when they are approached with curiosity, care, generosity, and time.
Many unheard stories are not forgotten. They continue to live in artistic practice, community memory, archives, and everyday cultural life. OBA listens to these stories with care, shares them with generosity, and carries them forward into new forms of creative expression.
Stories carried through practice, memory, and change.
Some stories are spoken.
Others are sung.
Some are danced.
Others remain in photographs, field recordings, notebooks, rituals, family memories, museum collections, and community archives.
Many have never been told in their entirety.
OBA begins with listening.
Stories reveal themselves when they are approached with curiosity, care, generosity, and time.
Many unheard stories are not forgotten. They continue to live in artistic practice, community memory, archives, and everyday cultural life. OBA listens to these stories with care, shares them with generosity, and carries them forward into new forms of creative expression.
Who Can Participate
OBA welcomes artists, cultural practitioners, researchers, musicians, dancers, archivists, educators, students, media artists, digital creators, and community knowledge holders.
Some come carrying stories through artistic and cultural practice. Others seek them through research and documentation. Others preserve them through archives and community memory or share them through film, video, and emerging digital media.
You do not need to be a filmmaker to participate. If your work engages with music, dance, memory, archives, ritual, or living heritage through moving images, OBA welcomes your contribution.
What matters most is the story, the relationships it reveals, and the care with which it is shared.
OBA welcomes artists, cultural practitioners, researchers, musicians, dancers, archivists, educators, students, media artists, digital creators, and community knowledge holders.
Some come carrying stories through artistic and cultural practice. Others seek them through research and documentation. Others preserve them through archives and community memory or share them through film, video, and emerging digital media.
You do not need to be a filmmaker to participate. If your work engages with music, dance, memory, archives, ritual, or living heritage through moving images, OBA welcomes your contribution.
What matters most is the story, the relationships it reveals, and the care with which it is shared.
What Can Be Submitted
At OBA, every submission begins with a story.
Stories may be shared through documentary, ethnographic film, video essay, performance documentation, archival footage, experimental practice, multimedia, or other forms of moving-image expression.
Accepted Story Lengths
• 1–5 Minute Story
• 5–15 Minute Story
• 15–30 Minute Story
OBA welcomes documentary, ethnographic, experimental, archival, performance, essay, hybrid, and other screen-based works.
At OBA, every submission begins with a story.
Stories may be shared through documentary, ethnographic film, video essay, performance documentation, archival footage, experimental practice, multimedia, or other forms of moving-image expression.
Accepted Story Lengths
• 1–5 Minute Story
• 5–15 Minute Story
• 15–30 Minute Story
OBA welcomes documentary, ethnographic, experimental, archival, performance, essay, hybrid, and other screen-based works.
Archives as Living Heritage
At OBA, archives are understood broadly. They are living sources of memory, knowledge, and creative possibility. They may consist of photographs, manuscripts, notebooks, family collections, oral histories, field recordings, unfinished films, digital files, or embodied memories carried through practice.
Every artist carries an archive.
Every researcher carries an archive.
Every community carries an archive.
Some are carefully catalogued.
Others rest quietly in boxes, cupboards, family albums, shelves, or forgotten hard drives.
OBA begins with an invitation: return to them—not only to preserve the past, but to discover the stories they still carry and the new creative work they may yet inspire.
At OBA, archives are understood broadly. They are living sources of memory, knowledge, and creative possibility. They may consist of photographs, manuscripts, notebooks, family collections, oral histories, field recordings, unfinished films, digital files, or embodied memories carried through practice.
Every artist carries an archive.
Every researcher carries an archive.
Every community carries an archive.
Some are carefully catalogued.
Others rest quietly in boxes, cupboards, family albums, shelves, or forgotten hard drives.
OBA begins with an invitation: return to them—not only to preserve the past, but to discover the stories they still carry and the new creative work they may yet inspire.
The OBA Experience
OBA follows a curated, recognition-based, non-competitive format. Selected works become part of a programme centred on dialogue, mentorship, artistic exchange, and shared learning.
Alongside curated screenings, OBA includes a mentorship-based residency, workshops, masterclasses, artist conversations, Story Laboratory sessions, roundtable dialogues, and cultural encounters.
For the inaugural edition, submission to the festival also serves as an application to participate fully in the OBA residency programme. Selected participants are invited to take part not only in the curated screenings but also in the festival’s programme of dialogue, mentorship, workshops, Story Laboratory sessions, and collaborative exchange.
OBA follows a curated, recognition-based, non-competitive format. Selected works become part of a programme centred on dialogue, mentorship, artistic exchange, and shared learning.
Alongside curated screenings, OBA includes a mentorship-based residency, workshops, masterclasses, artist conversations, Story Laboratory sessions, roundtable dialogues, and cultural encounters.
For the inaugural edition, submission to the festival also serves as an application to participate fully in the OBA residency programme. Selected participants are invited to take part not only in the curated screenings but also in the festival’s programme of dialogue, mentorship, workshops, Story Laboratory sessions, and collaborative exchange.
Key Dates
Submissions Open: Now
Submission Deadline: 15 August 2026
Notification of Selection: 3 September 2026
Final Programme Announced: 15 October 2026
Festival & Residency: 19–23 November 2026
Submissions Open: Now
Submission Deadline: 15 August 2026
Notification of Selection: 3 September 2026
Final Programme Announced: 15 October 2026
Festival & Residency: 19–23 November 2026
How to Submit
All submissions are accepted exclusively through the online submission form available on the OBA website:
livingstories.art/oba/submission
Email:
obafvf@gmail.com
All submissions are accepted exclusively through the online submission form available on the OBA website:
livingstories.art/oba/submission
Email:
obafvf@gmail.com
Invitation
Whether you arrive carrying a story, searching for one, preserving one, or giving one a new form, we warmly invite you to join us in Çanakkale for the inaugural gathering of OBA.
Listening. Sharing. Exchange.
Whether you arrive carrying a story, searching for one, preserving one, or giving one a new form, we warmly invite you to join us in Çanakkale for the inaugural gathering of OBA.
Listening. Sharing. Exchange.
Contact Us
Email: obafvf@gmail.com
