“If I die, remember me like this. You won’t be sad,” Halil Kantarci wrote on social media on the evening of July 15, 2016. At the time, Kantarci was standing on the balcony of his mother’s apartment, from where he could see soldiers and tanks amassing on the Istanbul Strait (Bogazici) Bridge—now renamed the July 15 Martyrs Bridge. Kantarci would soon learn that FETO terrorists plotting a coup against the government had raided the Cengelkoy Police Station. By then he had made up his mind: he could not stay silent.
Kantarci kissed his children goodbye, asked his wife for her blessings and left to join thousands of other citizens in the streets. As the coup attempt unfolded, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan addressed the nation: “I call on our people to come together as a nation in the squares and at the airports. I have never recognised any power above the power of the people, and we never will.” Hours later, Kantarci was shot dead by putschists in Cengelkoy – and his final post proved hauntingly prescient. He was only 36. He became a symbol of the sacrifice of those 253 people who were martyred while defending democracy and liberty.
Cut to the present. It is around 3.30 am in Cengelkoy. Soldiers in combat uniforms rush towards a crowd as frightened civilians spill into the streets. Shouts echo through the night, and the air is thick with the tension of a decade-old trauma. A decade later, the uniforms are costumes, the weapons are props, and the terror of that night is being carefully reconstructed for Asirlik Gece – a 15-part docudrama produced by TRT and now streaming on TRT 1 and Tabii. The scenes are being recreated not in studios but on the streets where the people confronted the putschists.
Actor Kemal Ucar portrays Halil Kantarci confronting the putschists shortly before he is fatally shot, but the series goes far beyond a single narrative. Ten years earlier, members of the Fetullah Terrorist Organisation (FETO)—a clandestine network that had spent decades infiltrating schools, the military and state institutions—attempted to seize control of the Turkish state. Tanks blocked bridges, fighter jets bombed parliament, and a commando unit was dispatched to target President Erdogan. The series is adapted from Huseyin Aydin’s book, Asirlik Gece: Belgeler ve Deliller Isiginda 15 Temmuz Darbe Girisimi — A Century-Long Night: The July 15 Coup Attempt in Light of Documents and Evidence.
Screenwriter Fatih Mutlu transformed the book’s extensive documentary material into a narrative that could be visualised on screen. This is neither a crime drama nor a conventional political thriller. It is a docudrama—a hybrid form that interweaves dramatic reconstruction with archival footage, official documents and testimony from those who witnessed the coup attempt, both on the streets and from inside some of Türkiye’s most critical institutions. Filming in Cengelkoy continues until the first light of morning, mirroring the hours of violence and resistance that defined the night.
For those who lived through them, the title can feel almost literal: a single night whose weight and consequences have spanned a century. The docudrama traces the FETO terror group’s decades-long infiltration of schools, the military and state institutions before following 15 intersecting stories from the coup attempt. It is the first docudrama to feature an interview with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan recorded specifically for such a project. “Securing the President’s interview and bringing together the witnesses of that night was one of our greatest achievements on the production side,” general coordinator Muhammed Erkam Bulbul, 41, tells.
The series also explores the psychology behind the organisation, portraying how religion was used to demand absolute obedience. It reconstructs efforts to seize the General Staff and strategic sites in Ankara and Istanbul, the heart of the resistance. More than 90 interviews form its documentary spine. Interviewees include President Erdogan; current MIT officials; and survivors of the night. Conscript Muhammet Recep Ulu recounts what he witnessed at Akinci Air Base, while dramatised scenes bring these accounts to life with startling clarity. Together, their testimony reveals not only events on the streets but also the decisions, confrontations and the sheer scale of the betrayal.
“We can call it the biggest television series ever produced in Türkiye. In effect, we have filmed the equivalent of almost 15 feature-length films,” the production team notes. The project was developed through the testimonies of real witnesses—the people at the centre of these events. This history unfolds alongside key events of July 15, including the warning received by the National Intelligence Organisation and the attempt to occupy the General Staff headquarters. The wider story includes attacks on religious officials and places of worship: at the Police Special Operations complex in Golbasi, imam Mustafa Yaman was killed while helping after the first air strike, and a muezzin was injured.
The production team faced the challenge of balancing historical accuracy with the emotional weight of the events. Two employees were killed and four were wounded at state broadcasting facilities, but the broadcasts continued. Military, police, political, media and civilian accounts are placed beside one another to provide a holistic view of the night. “July 15 was terrifying for all of us. But it also showed how, in difficult moments, we came together as a country and a nation and said ‘stop’ to the coup plotters in a loud voice for our freedom and democracy,” says one of the producers.
“Young people in particular do not know very much about an event that took place ten years ago,” Saglam says, explaining the necessity of the project. The series serves as a bridge between the immediate memory of the survivors and the collective memory of the next generation. By using real locations, the production team aims to ground the abstract political crisis in the physical reality of the neighbourhoods where the battle for democracy was fought. Every street corner, every police station, and every bridge serves as a silent witness to the events of that night.
The production design team spent months researching the exact uniforms, vehicles, and equipment used by the putschists and the loyalist forces. This attention to detail ensures that the docudrama remains faithful to the historical record while maintaining the pace of a modern thriller. The series does not shy away from the brutality of the coup attempt, showing the destruction of public buildings and the loss of life, but it also highlights the resilience of the people who stood in front of tanks to protect their elected government.
“This is the story of the Turkish nation’s stand against the coup attempt and its victory,” the creators state. As the series reaches its conclusion, it leaves the audience with a profound sense of the cost of liberty. The legacy of the 253 martyrs is woven into every frame, reminding viewers that the democracy they enjoy today was bought with the lives of those who refused to let their country fall. Asirlik Gece stands as a testament to that sacrifice, ensuring that the events of July 15 are never forgotten by those who were not there to witness them.
Shouts reverberate through the darkness, and panic appears to spread by the second.
Interviewees include President Erdogan; current MIT Director Ibrahim Kalin, then presidential spokesperson; Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, who headed MIT in 2016; officials, security personnel, veterans, victims’ relatives and civilians who took to the streets.
Turgut Aslan, then head of the Turkish National Police’s Counter-Terrorism Department, revisits the attack that left him gravely wounded, with an actor recreating his experience.
By the final days of filming, the cameras had entered 342 locations.
The screenplay took six months to prepare, while the shoot lasted approximately three months.
Directors Cihan Saglam, 40, and Ahmet Toklu divided the production between two units, with a filming crew of around 160 people working through an unusually compressed schedule.
The passing decade created another challenge: many sites no longer looked as they did in 2016.
Production designers had to reverse later alterations and rebuild the visual texture of the night.
Bulbul says the series employed a principal cast of 192 to 193 actors and nearly 14,000 supporting performers and extras; another production representative places the wider cast at around 250 when all speaking and supporting roles are included.
The cast includes Erkan Petekkaya as Salih Zeki Colak, Ruzgar Aksoy as Omer Halisdemir, Yavuz Bingol as Adil Oksuz, Murat Aygen as Hakan Fidan, Burak Sergen as Zekai Aksakalli, Gulsim Ali as Hatice Kubra Ciftci, Seckin Ozdemir as Tolga Kilincarslan, Emir Benderlioglu as Muhsin Kose, Kemal Ucar as Halil Kantarci and Cem Kurtoglu as Hulusi Akar.
The score is by composer Can Atilla.
“We based all of it on the real camera recordings from that night, the original footage and the court records,” Bulbul says.
“That was already the most difficult part of the work.” For a production reconstructing an event still carried in living memory, spectacle could not be allowed to displace evidence.
Accuracy extended to clothing, colour and time of day.
A production representative gives the example of Hatice Kubra Ciftci, who confronted the FETO-linked coup troops on the bridge wearing a black-and-white shirt, a black headscarf and black trousers.
Gulsim Ali was dressed in matching clothes and filmed in the same place during the corresponding time frame.
“Whoever experienced an event that night, we included everything down to the colour of what they wore and their shoes,” Bulbul says.
The first reactions have reflected an appetite for precisely these lesser-known details.
“People tell us, ‘We wish we could watch it all at once,’” director Saglam says.
“Because we are telling a true story, we explore many things people did not know.
Taha Koyuncu was just 23 on the night of July 15 and had only recently completed his military service, during which he served in a tank unit.
We also carried out deep preliminary work so that the real events of that night could reach the audience in the most affecting cinematic way.”
His team sought a different balance, investing in performance, production design and real locations so the dramatised scenes would carry the emotional and visual force of cinema without losing their factual foundation.
One international reference remained in his mind during development: HBO’s Chernobyl.
He was drawn to the way that series combined the circumstances surrounding a disaster with the intimate struggle of people trying to survive it.
Across the 15 episodes, the scale of the attempted takeover is repeatedly brought back to individual decisions.
Omer Halisdemir received an order he knew could cost him his life.
Acting on the instructions of Special Forces Commander Lt.
Hundreds of kilometres away, on the bridge now named after the July 15 martyrs, Erol Olcok—a close friend and campaign manager of President Erdogan who had helped shape the AK Party’s political campaigns—and his 16-year-old son, Abdullah Tayyip, joined the civilian resistance.
Another episode follows Halil Kantarcı, who was 36 when he went out that night.
Actor Kemal Ucar has played many figures from distant history, but he says this role carried a different weight.
“If we can speak these sentences freely today, it is thanks to the people who truly sacrificed themselves for this country.”
“Perhaps he never expected that a weapon would be pointed at him.
But when he saw it, he did not run, because in his world there were things more important than himself.”
Re-entering Kantarci’s last moments, he says, brought grief but also an unexpected sense of completion.
“In the seconds when we filmed his final moments, my sorrow gave way to the feeling of a person who had fulfilled his duty.
Perhaps I internalised it too deeply.
I only hope I have fulfilled my own duty in a worthy way.”
The sala prayers recited from mosques became one of the defining symbols of the night, carrying a call for unity from minaret to minaret as people were urged into the streets.
One episode returns to Polatli Carsi Mosque in Ankara’s Polatli district, where coup troops tried to stop the call by threatening mosque officials and breaking sound equipment.
The struggle over sound was also a struggle over information.
The sequence makes clear why both public and private channels had become strategic targets: whoever controlled the signal could shape what the country understood to be happening.
That multiplication of perspectives is central to the format.
The chain of command appears through interviews and actors, allowing testimony to interrupt, clarify and deepen the dramatised scenes rather than simply follow them.
Some scenes were so painful, he adds, that the crew could scarcely believe the events had actually happened.
Source: TRT World
