When an 11-year-old girl is forced to spend the night at her estranged grandmother’s farmhouse in rural Anatolia, an uncanny encounter compels her to grow up by inheriting the ghosts of the women who came before her...

Süt Dişi [Milk Teeth] is a haunting, magical realist short film and directorial debut of Turkish playwright and screenwriter Melis Aker.

When 11-year-old Aylin is sent to spend the night at her estranged grandmother Nurperi’s farmhouse, she expects boredom. Instead, she finds another girl her age wandering the halls — a strange child who leads her deeper into the house and, unknowingly, into Nurperi’s collapsing memory...

As night falls, the old woman’s dementia begins to blur time, and Aylin becomes trapped inside her grandmother’s fading mind, where memory and haunting coexist. The boundaries of time dissolve, and Aylin begins to witness the hidden lives of the women in her family — their quiet rebellions, the roles they were forced to play, and the desires they were denied. By morning, she realizes that coming-of-age means inheriting not just their memories, but the weight of what they were never allowed to become. What she experiences becomes a surreal, interior journey through the ghosts, expectations, and silences that have shaped generations of women.

Set in central Anatolia, Milk Teeth (Süt Dişi) is a haunting coming-of-age story about the invisible weight girls carry without choosing, and the question of whether cycles of pain can ever be unlearned. It’s a film about inheritance — of body, memory, and silence — and the fragile possibility of transformation.

Melis grew up in Ankara, where she will also film Milk Teeth, at her family’s real farmhouse. The project stems from her experience of watching her grandmother’s Alzheimer’s unfold, a moment that felt like witnessing someone live in another time, possessed and haunted by fragments of the past. At its core, Milk Teeth explores how women inherit silence, expectation, and suppressed desire through generations. It situates those emotional inheritances within the context of contemporary Turkey, where violence against women remains pervasive (across generations), and where stories of care, resilience, and survival often go untold.

Visually, the film blends psychological realism with quiet magical surrealism, where domestic spaces feel alive, memory behaves like weather, and a child’s gaze transforms the grief of time passed into a sort of internal understanding of change.

Your support will help Melis collaborate with a small, professional Turkish crew, covering fair wages, transportation, and lodging for a weekend shoot outside Ankara. By supporting Milk Teeth, you’ll be helping bring to life a story that turns personal loss into a universal reflection on memory, womanhood, and what it means to inherit both pain and love.

Why now?

Global conversations about girlhood, bodily autonomy, and generational trauma are increasingly visible, yet stories from Turkey—especially those centered on intergenerational female experience—remain underrepresented. Süt Dişi offers a specific, culturally grounded perspective that speaks to the universal experience of inheriting fear, shame, and resilience from previous generations of women.

Where the project is now

Süt Dişi is currently in pre-production.

• The script is complete.
• The primary location (the farmhouse and surrounding land) is secured.
• Our DP, first AD and costume/props designer are attached.
• Key producers are in place.
• Casting is underway for the child leads and the grandmother, with the role of Aylin's mother, Feride, secured.
• A 3-to-4-day shooting window is planned between March 2026 (with a preference for when schools are on break in Turkey, between 16-20 March 2026).
• The project has already received $10,000 in support from Sundance and private financiers.

The missing piece is the production budget needed to pay cast and crew fairly, rent equipment, and cover transportation and lodging for a small team traveling from Istanbul to a rural area 30–40 minutes outside Ankara.

How this campaign will move the project forward

Seed & Spark funds will be used to:

• Pay cast and crew for a 3-to-4-day shoot
• Cover travel between Istanbul and the farmhouse location near Ankara
• Provide lodging and meals for cast and crew
• Rent camera, lighting, and sound equipment
• Support production design, costumes, and props
• Complete post-production (editing, sound design, and color)

Reaching the campaign goal will allow the team to confirm dates, lock crew, and go into production within the planned winter window.

Timeline & audience access

Planned schedule (subject to typical indie-film flexibility):

• Production: March 2026
• Post-production: March–May 2026
• Festival submissions & community screenings: Summer–Autumn 2026

Supporters of the campaign will receive regular updates from the set, peeks into the family house and its history, and, at the appropriate stage, a private online screening link before wider festival circulation. Higher-tier backers will be credited in the film as outlined in the campaign rewards.

Stretch goals

If the campaign exceeds its initial target, additional funds will be used to:

• Expand the post-production budget to include a more extensive sound mix and professional color grade
• Cover a broader festival submission strategy across Europe, North America, and key regional festivals

How supporters can help

The team is asking potential supporters to:

• Pledge at any level (small contributions are genuinely impactful)
• Follow the campaign to boost its visibility on Seed & Spark
• Share the project with friends, family, and communities interested in cinema, Turkish stories, and narratives about girlhood and generational memory

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT!