In the summer of 2021, Türkiye endured one of the most destructive wildfire seasons in its history. Across the country’s Aegean and Mediterranean regions, forests burned, communities came under threat and livelihoods rooted in the land were thrown into doubt.
Filmed over four years, From Ashes follows two communities whose lives remain inseparable from the forest. In Mugla, beekeeper Hüseyin returns to a village where his home and the surrounding pine forests have been reduced to ash. Their destruction threatens a centuries-old tradition built on the intricate relationship between pine trees, honeybees and the tiny scale insect known locally as the “honey bug”. In the Taurus Mountains, the residents of Ormana rely on generations of knowledge, instinct and one another as fire descends towards their 800-year-old village.
Bringing these intimate stories together with the perspectives of researchers and forestry institutions, the films move from the immediacy of disaster to the long work of recovery. Against a backdrop of public grief, debate over prevention and response, and a changing climate, From Ashes asks how communities can protect the landscapes, livelihoods and traditions that define them—and what it means to live with fire in an increasingly uncertain world.
Films:
Land of the Honey Bug — 1 × 72′
Two months after Türkiye’s 2021 wildfires, beekeeper Hüseyin returns to his village in Mugla, where his home and the surrounding pine forests have been reduced to ash. For generations, these forests sustained a distinctive beekeeping tradition rooted in the intricate relationship between pine trees, honeybees and the tiny scale insect known locally as the “honey bug”. As this fragile ecology begins to unravel, Hüseyin and his community search for a way forward in a landscape transformed by fire.
The Mountainside of Ormana — 1 × 53′
In Ormana, an 800-year-old village in Türkiye’s Taurus Mountains, life remains closely bound to the surrounding forest. When wildfire closes in, residents rely on instinct, generations of local knowledge and one another to protect their home. Their response reveals the deep ties between people and place—and how familiarity with the land can become a form of survival as the future of that landscape grows increasingly uncertain.