GREEN LIFE · ARCHIVE · 2020–2026
50+children’s workshops, 2020–2025
Green Life is the Festival’s programme for children and the environment. It began in 2020, when the Festival ran entirely on solar power and became Türkiye’s first green festival. Since then it has run children’s workshops, open-air film screenings and projects with schools.
21Green Screen
Open-air screenings of films about music, children and the environment, held since 2020. All screenings are free. The programme showed 21 films in 2020, four documentaries in 2021 and four films in 2022. In 2026 it held a documentary screening and talk with the Eco Legacy Mediterranean Association.
50+Children’s workshops
Workshops for children and families at the Festival Centre and Toprak Ev, on subjects ranging from waste and composting to forest fires, the Mediterranean monk seal and shadow theatre: 3 in 2020, 18 in 2021, 22 in 2022, 3 in 2024 and 6 in 2025, alongside three children’s plays.
2Peksimet and Çömlekçi
For many years the Festival has worked with the children of Peksimet village, through the Peksimet Education and Culture Association (PEK-DER), and with the pupils of Çömlekçi Village Primary School. Both groups take part in every workshop free of charge.
Year by year
2020Türkiye’s first green festival
- All the Festival’s power came from a solar-powered generator supplied by the Dutch company Volta Energy. The Embassy of the Netherlands and the Netherlands Consulate General in Istanbul sponsored the green festival.
- Green Screen (Yeşil Perde): 21 open-air films between 19 August and 17 September, curated by Azize Tan of Başka Sinema, with an audience of approximately 1,000. All screenings were free.
- 4 September: Green Stories of Bodrum, a panel at the Festival Centre chaired by Professor Tanay Sıdkı Uyar of EUROSOLAR Türkiye, with Roel Bleumer of Volta Energy, Arif Yılmaz and Yaman Olgaç of the Bodrum City Council, Fahir Üzümcü of Bodrum Tohum Derneği and Cevdet Türk of Bizim Bostan. The panel, attended by approximately fifty people, was followed by a screening of the documentary Green Tales of the City.
- Screenings of the Toast & Tea animated films from KLIK Amsterdam, and a pottery workshop with Toprak Sencer
- Breaking a Bag Habit, an environmental education session, and a special programme for children on the autism spectrum
202128 June – 27 September
- Workshops with the PEK-DER children on recycling, drama, storytelling and mechanics
- Caner and Tamer Karataş’s Old Toys and Glider from Rubbish workshops
- From the Atta Festival: a soundpainting workshop with Burcu Yılmaz, the Mini Hologram and Story Lantern (Öykü Feneri) workshops, and the children’s play Rabbit Wanted (Tavşan Aranıyor)
- Babun Play: a microplastic hunt and a Design and Make Your Own Tent workshop
- The children’s play Bir Kocaman Eşşek (One Big Donkey), and the For the Love of Bees! workshop, in which children built a bug hotel
- From 24 to 27 September, with Documentarist Istanbul Documentary Days, four documentaries under the title Extinction Rebellion (Yokoluş İsyanı): I Am Greta, Nothing But the Sun, Arica and Kuzey Ormanları (The Northern Forests)
- The opening screening, I Am Greta, was held on 24 September, the day of the Global Climate Strike, before an audience that included villagers from İkizköy campaigning to protect the Akbelen Forest.
2022Children · nature · film
- May: Nuran Akkılıç Kansu’s workshops Çocuklarla Doğadayız (Out in Nature with Children) and Empati Çemberi (Empathy Circle)
- 15 June: an awareness event on the Mediterranean monk seal with SAD-AFAG
- 19–26 June: MEF University’s Design and Make workshop at Gümüşlük Primary School
- June: Music and Rhythm, and Creative Work and Recycling, two workshops with the Peksimet children
- 24 July: Recycle, Design, Play · 22 August: Taking to Our Heels (Tabanları Yağlamak), a children’s play written for and inspired by the Festival Centre
- 1–7 September: Caner and Tamer Karataş’s Chorus of Sounds from Waste on the SUDA stage
- 3 September: the Green Children’s Library opened with a story hour, together with Babun Children’s Bookshop
- 4 September: the shadow play Minik Tohum (Little Seed) · 5 September: Babun Play’s travelling playground
- 7 September: a games and interactive dance workshop with Caner and Tamer Karataş for first- and second-year pupils at Çömlekçi Village Primary School
- 7 September: a compost and seed workshop · 10 September: Devr-i Âlem, a talk on nature
- 3–7 September: four films programmed with the Bozcaada International Ecological Documentary Festival
2023
- 18–24 June: in MEF University’s Design and Make! workshop, 14 students designed and built the seating for the Festival Centre
- A children’s workshop on creating art from waste materials
2024Green Life and music
- Three workshops with the Peksimet children on 27 July, 5 August and 25 August, supported by Jotun: stone painting, drawing, and an introduction to musical instruments with the guest musician Miron Rafajlović
- 5 September: a workshop for 11 children at Çömlekçi Village Primary School
2025
- Six children’s workshops at the Festival Centre and Toprak Ev
- Opening day, Last Nail, First Note (16 July): an instrument-making workshop with Bahar Uygur using recycled materials. At the opening concert, children from PEK-DER and the surrounding area played a song on the instruments they had made.
- The same day: an upcycling workshop with MisGibi1Bodrum, making ornaments from bottle caps, alongside drawing and painting.
2026
- Opening day, Last Nail, First Note (17 July): an upcycling workshop with MisGibi1Bodrum for ages 6 to 8, creating artwork from waste materials on MDF boards.
- The same day: a beach and underwater clean-up by young people with the Green Rangers of the Eco Legacy Mediterranean Association, followed at Toprak Ev by a screening of the documentary İstilacılar (The Invaders) and a talk by marine biologist Dr Başak Sözer, The Life-Giving Role of the Seas.
- Philosophy for Children (P4C) workshops for ages 8–11 and 11–14 at the PEK-DER Children’s Library
- 26 August: a violin and bow care workshop for the GFA violin students, led by luthiers Bahar Uygur and Ufuk Güler
Green Life partnersPEK-DER (Peksimet) · Çömlekçi Village Primary School · Babun Children’s Bookshop · Bozcaada International Ecological Documentary Festival · Eco Legacy Mediterranean Association · Embassy and Consulate General of the Netherlands · Institut français İzmir · Goethe-Institut İzmir · Support Foundation for Civil Society · MisGibi1Bodrum · Atta Children’s Festival · Hatay Academic Symphony Orchestra · Başka Sinema · Istanbul Kültür University · MEF University · Bodrum Institute · Gümüşlük Forum · Buğday Association · Bodrum Health Foundation · Volta Energy · SAD-AFAG · Jotun · Documentarist Istanbul Documentary Days · KLIK Amsterdam
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