In Istanbul self-employed trash collectors, working in the pre-dawn and early dusk hours, separate recyclable products from other miscellaneous waste. They run up and downhill with their bulging, heavy carts. The paper and plastics are then sold to recycling companies.

“Cumartesi” (Saturday) was filmed in 2012. Istanbul has been radically changing in the last years due to a state-led gentrification process. Entire neighborhoods, including Tarlabaşı where the protagonist of this short film used to live, got razed to the ground for hotel and real estate development, segregating society according to people’s income levels and architecturally imposing a top-down restructuring of the social sphere.