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  • 1 week ago
More than a ski film, Of the Black Sea is a personal, character-driven journey with Türkiye’s mountains as the backdrop. Turkic-American pro skier Giray Dadali returns to his father’s homeland to confront a question he’s carried for years: Which has a greater influence—heritage or upbringing? As he steps into a new chapter of life, the trip becomes both an adventure and an exploration of belonging. Moving between winter terrain, lived-in moments, and reflections on family and culture, Giray searches for where he fits—and what parts of Turkish identity he wants to carry forward. The result is a film about connection: to place, to lineage, and to the stories we inherit and rewrite.
Transcript
00:09Knowing how to define yourself is so important.
00:14Having that firm understanding of who you are is just an empowering thing.
00:20As a child, I felt very torn between two different cultures.
00:27Since I have an American mother and my father is Turkish, so having the American community
00:34see me as Turkish and the Turkish community see me as an American left me with this void
00:39of where do I belong.
00:45This trip felt like something where I could go find people who were like me that do the
00:52same things as me. People who saw the world maybe in the way that I did and I could learn
00:58more about myself and also what it means to be a didali or what it means to be Turkish.
01:16Hi!
01:20When I first met Kuray, I was very drawn to him because he was such a curious person.
01:26When you do have your different cultures, there may be one person that really doesn't
01:30understand everything you're getting into.
01:33If I want to state my mind, I can state it.
01:37We were always hoping that we can go back to Kuram, but unfortunately it never happened.
01:44Every nation, every religion, they want their kids to marry with their own.
01:52You can't change that.
01:57Wanna wave?
01:59Arya, you're skiing!
02:05I think everything about Urjan is what Guray was hoping to find in Turkey.
02:11Sooner or later, there will be a very well-qualified mountain community in Turkey because there's a
02:17demand.
02:19The things that I was able to discover on this trip opened up this whole doorway into what being Turkish
02:25could be.

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