The 2013 Turkish Gezi Park protests started with an environmental campaign to save trees in a small Istanbul park, which the ruling AKP government wanted to redevelop. The protests spread to the adjacent Taksim Square and escalated into weeks of, at times, violent conflict.

A 15-year-old boy who suffered a head injury when he was hit by a teargas cartridge fired by police in the clashes died after nine months in a coma on Tuesday. Police fired teargas to disperse protesters outside the hospital where he died, while in Ankara riot police used water cannon and teargas against a crowd of around 2,000 mourning his death.

Turkish animated film director Ayce Kartal, 36, portrays the summer of Gezi Park protests in his award-winning short animation, Tornistan (Backward Run).

“From millions of people shouting on the streets to violence, everything became serious,” he said.
“The main media organisations stayed silent and screened only classic daily programmes on TV. “Thousands of people were wounded, became permanently disabled. Some were even killed but we couldn’t get any news from our own Turkish press. We watched live news online via TV channels from Norway, Germany and France.

“One old man’s initial reaction to the Gezi Park protests was to ask whether we had won the bidding to host the world cup; he did not have the internet. That was the moment that I decided to make a film about this tragic case.”

The filmmaker finished the film in 18 days, at a cost of $2,000 (£1,200).

Kartal criticises the broad media tradition of censorship in the short, and admits to self-censorship in his depiction of Turkey’s memorable uprising. “Up until now, nobody has come to my door or said something, but this is also frightening. Sometimes it feels like the calm before a storm. Can you believe that you can make an animated documentary – which is exactly showing the truth – as an artist and you can be afraid of what you are doing?”

The hand-drawn film evokes the style of French director Sylvain Chomet.

Kartal also shines a light on the lack of interest of animation as a culture of expression in Turkey. “People still think that animation is only for children, or that it is something that makes you laugh while watching TV. Even what we have for children is poor.”