Symbioz Films boards sales for Istanbul drama Sevda

Symbioz Films has taken on international sales for Sevda, the debut fiction feature from Swiss-Turkish director Ufuk Emiroglu, and released a trailer. The news was reported by Deadline on 9 October 2026.

Sales in this context is straightforward business. A sales company offers a film to distributors around the world, territory by territory, for cinema, television and streaming release.

Emiroglu is best known so far for documentary. Her My Father, the Revolution and Me played at Locarno in 2013. Sevda is her first non-documentary feature. She co-wrote the screenplay with Ercan Kesal, who also appears in the film.

The story stays close to Istanbul's property market. Sevda, the central character, is a real estate developer involved in the city's gentrification. Work on a major development stops when builders find an old Ottoman cemetery on the land.

An elderly caretaker refuses to leave the site. That standoff forces a reckoning. The Zurich Film Festival, which programmes the film as a 2026 drama, says Sevda's family's buried past comes to light when the project meets that obstacle.

The film runs 101 minutes, according to Swiss Films. It was made as a co-production between Switzerland, Turkey and Belgium, a structure in which companies in different countries share the financing and production work.

The credited producers are Nadia Turincev and Omar El Kadi, Nicolas Wadimoff and Philippe Coeytaux for Akka Films, Eva Kuperman and Anton Iffland Stettner for Stenola Production, and Ersan Congar and Cihan Aslı Filiz for Bir Film. That spread of names reflects the three-country backing.

Sevda had its world premiere, its first public screening, at the Zurich Film Festival in September. Zurich is one of the autumn festivals where new films first meet buyers, press and audiences. Cineuropa published a review of the film on 6 October.

Symbioz is itself new to that marketplace. The company was launched in May by Aleksandar Govedarica as a Europe-based sales and production outfit. Company materials describe Symbioz as established in 2026 and specialising in all-rights sales.

What makes this stand out for viewers is the timing. A festival premiere puts a film on the map. A sales deal decides what happens next. The trailer gives a first public look while distributors weigh where the film could play.