Screenings: 15 November 2026 Sunday 14:00 / 3 December 2026 Thursday 20:00 / 20 December 2026 Sunday 18:30

Director: Mehmet Muhtar

Screenplay: Ümit Deniz, Turgut Demirağ, Ali Rıza Seyfi (source novel)

Cast: Annie Ball, Atıf Kaptan, Bülent Oran, Ayfer Feray, Kadri Ögelman, Cahit Irgat

Producer: Turgut Demirağ (And Film)
Cinematography and editing: Özen Sermet
Art director: Sohban Koloğlu

Türkiye / 1953 / 102 min. / Black and white / Turkish / English subtitles

Brought to life through producer Turgut Demirağ’s vision, Dracula in Istanbul is Türkiye’s oldest surviving horror film. It is adapted from Ali Rıza Seyfi’s 1928 Turkish reworking of Bram Stoker’s Dracula—the novel that also inspired F. W. Murnau’s Nosferatu (1922)—published as Kazıklı Voyvoda and reissued in 1997 as Drakula İstanbul’da. The screenplay’s successful adaptation to a Turkish setting earned Ümit Deniz the Film Friends Association’s award for Most Successful Screenplay. Mehmet Muhtar’s accomplished direction, editing that sustains the tension, masterful cinematography and sound design have earned the film cult status among film lovers.

Count Dracula wishes to purchase a number of houses in Istanbul through Azmi, the lawyer he has engaged. But when Azmi discovers that Dracula is a vampire—referred to in the film as a “hortlak”, or revenant—he tries to kill him. Escaping Azmi, Dracula arrives in Istanbul, heralding grave danger for Azmi’s fiancée Güzin and her cousin Şadan.
 

* The film’s original nitrate negative has been preserved to the present day in the archive of Mimar Sinan University’s Prof. Sami Şekeroğlu Cinema and Television Research and Application Center. After physical restoration of the negatives at Atlas Post Production, high-resolution scanning was carried out at the Cinema & TV Institute. Digital restoration and all post-production work were also completed at Atlas Post Production. We thank our restoration project sponsor, Kurukahveci Mehmet Efendi, and the rights holder, Melike Demirağ.