Scars of a Putsch
Nathalie Borgers / Austria & Belgium / 2025 / 102 min
A filmmaker unfolds the story behind the scars on her husband's body. The answer is the story of the 1980 military coup and Türkiye’s slide towards authoritarianism.
On September 12, 1980, General Kenan Evren seized power in Türkiye in a brutal military coup that crushed the country’s left-wing and democratic hopes. Revolutionaries were imprisoned, tortured or killed. Abidin, the director’s husband, was one of those targeted – shot by a fascist militia and forced into exile in Vienna. His physical wounds have healed, but the scars of the past still haunt him.
His wife, filmmaker Nathalie Borgers, embarks on a personal journey to understand what history her husband’s scars hold. Through his story, she uncovers how the coup not only scarred him for life, but also fundamentally changed Türkiye – from the West’s passive acceptance of military rule to the gradual re-Islamization that paved the way for the authoritarian present.
Through the scars, the hidden wounds of history open up, and they turn out to belong to an entire country. For the coup has also influenced the future political landscape of Türkiye, from Erdoğan’s rise to the authoritarian present. ‘Scars of a Putsch’ unravels the story behind the 1980 military coup – an upheaval that changed modern Turkish history.