Her funny stories, the beautiful landscape of her home, her intimate knowledge of it and her ordered anarchy made me want to hear and see more. Coping with the boredom and the risks of life lived alone shepherding in the mountains, Hatice relished the personal freedom of being far from the village, saying she would prefer life in the city to that of the village were she compelled to choose.

The fisher of the second part of the film found her independence through the death of her husband who had been her working companion at sea. She slowly gained the skills she had seen him employ with the nets, the boat and the fish, setting out on the waters alone day after day out of necessity, despite her inability to swim. Other fishing women depicted in the film – reminding me of some women back in my own home village in the UK – laughed as they said they envied her fearlessness and freedom going out in her boat alone. They made jokes too about their work making them smell constantly of fish and their own on-the-edge swimming skills: “Just enough to save my life if I have to.”

The final part of “Sisters of Lilith” introduced life in an Anatolian village where women do most of the fieldwork while the men laze on by. Captivating up-close footage of silk-making – from collecting the cocoons to the cleansing, spinning and weaving – showed just one of the women’s ancient skills. After the scenes of women working hard picking cotton in the fields, to pay for their daughters dowries or their own hernia operations, the most comic shot was of a man, standing alone and apparently clueless amongst the plants as though he really did not know where to start. The message was that the women had earned a measure of “equality” with their men through their collective labor, one of them announcing her courage in trading fields herself when her husband was away on other business. But they also complained that they worked so hard that sometimes they forgot they were women – and I wasn’t convinced that they felt equal with the men they lived alongside, despite their freedoms.

Though the stories in “Sisters of Lilith” were promoted as depicting life lived “in harmony with nature,” “Nature” in fact was left an open category in these films, romanticized through the sheer beauty of the screen locations, but not without some acknowledgement of its hardships too. Modernity had clearly had impacts on the lives of all these women in one way or another through media and markets. The crucial question remaining is what impact the grounded lives and productive identities of women like these may yet have on modernity, in times when aspects of modernity are more clearly failing more people than ever before.

And a note: Çelebi dedicated her film to Pippa Bacca, the Italian artist on the solo stretch of her hitchhike journey to Israel on a mission of peace, whose cause and peacework gained worldwide mass media attention only through the terrible event of her being raped and killed.

But the second film, “How is it like outside” or “Dışarısı nasıl?” directed by Nursel Doğan, was a tougher watch, and differently inspirational.

Through interviews with the subject, her son and friends, Doğan portrayed the story of Yildiz, a woman who has struggled through a repressive and violent forced marriage and out the other side, casting off the “toga” (full-body and face covering) that was also imposed by her family along the way. Yildiz realized the opportunity to refuse the covering spontaneously whilst awaiting her mother in the hospital who had collapsed upon seeing Yildiz’s face severely beaten and bloodied by her husband.

Yıldız told her story of forging an entirely new life for herself and her children in dire circumstances and through committed friendships, political beliefs and activity and through the hard work of basic manual labor to keep the money coming in and her children fed and clothed. She had to try to hide her activities from her husband, who would beat her if he arrived home before her. When filing for divorce, Yildiz needed evidence of her husband’s violence and so had to endure “a beating” to provide it – and yet then was old by the police and judges that this was not enough, and she needed to call them while her husband was hitting her.

Yildiz strength and intrinsic self-confidence shone through the film. Though forced to quit school at 14, she later learned to read and took up study. Through her work cleaning in a school for mentally challenged children, Yildiz spoke about her growing awareness of life beyond herself and joining political movements, to stand up for what she believed in. The film depicted hunger strikes and mass rallies. Her friends inquired into her quietness on her first journey to a public demonstration: “I just want to be a good revolutionary,” she said.

Her sharing of her story is without doubt a good revolutionary step. But Doğan’s stirring film cannot be shown in Yıldız’s home region, Erzurum, because of “political reasons,” said Yıldız. While she wants to reach more people with her story and film work, Yıldız’s family has also thus far refused to see Doğan’s film or even look at the promotional material for it. And I wondered what happened to her husband – a clearly unhappy and himself deeply damaged man – and what support there could possibly be for him to change for the better. But the beautiful woman who introduced the film she starred in glowed in comparison to her work-worn though funny and indomitable figure on-screen.

In both films, the women themselves embodied, lived and yet contradicted and surpassed the two-dimensional stereotypes of Turkish – or more specifically peasant-culture Anatolian – women as closeted, veiled and secluded, dependent and family-bound. But a foundation of their strength and self-confidence came many times from clear recognition of their vulnerabilities. I hope these films will go a long way further yet. As Celebi welcomed the audience: “İyi seyeler.”