Çay is a short documentary which explores the role of tea as a cultural thread within the Turkish Diaspora in London. Filming Turkish barbershops, restaurants, cafes and homes, the film captures the everyday ritual of çay, how its prepared, its offering and its sharing, as a practice that carries identity, memory and belonging across borders. Interviewing members of the Turkish community, çay reveals how a simple beverage sustains a connection to the homeland and keeps culture alive in an unfamiliar city.
As a second-generation Turkish-British filmmaker, Kubra Arslan's positionality within this community enables her to approach this subject as not just an outsider, but as someone who shares the cultural memory of çay, allowing her to access conversations, spaces, and the authenticity of moments that an external researcher could not. The drive behind this project is the desire to represent a community whose everyday cultural practices remain largely invisible in documentary filmmaking and to create a visual record for the gurbetçiler who have carried çay with them across borders.
