Golden Orange 2009 | Bornova Bornova

BORNOVA BORNOVA


İNAN TEMELKURAN

İnan Temelkuran Director/Script/Producer

Yıldıray İnan Executive Producer
Enrique Santiago Silguero Director of Photography
Erkan Tekemen Editor

CAST

Salih: Kadir Çermik
Hakan: Öner Erkan
Özlem: Damla Sönmez
Murat:Erkan Bektaş
Ali: Onur Öner Ateş
İhsan: Murat Kılıç
Senem: Selen Uçer
Ömer: Hasan Sahintürk
İbo: Mustafa Kırantepe



The movie takes place in a time when dreams are reduced to almost nothing and when it’s difficult to remain sane. Ordinary life becomes a one greater expectation.

Salih and Hakan who spend their entire days in front of the grocery shop thinking we were given the chance. Salih is like a older brother to Hakan. Hakan has just came back from the mandatory military service. His football career ended before even it had started because of an injury. He is without a job or a vocation He hopes to be to be a taxi driver. Salih is the psycopath of the neigborhood. He’s the only person who listens to Hakan and gives him advices. Although Salih has grown up in a well meaning educated family he’s involved in every kind of illegal business in the neighborhood. Everbody is scared of him. High school girl Özlem included. Hakan is crazy about her but he never had the the courage to talk to her.

Murat who is Salih’s childhood friend and a Ph-d student in philosophy makes a living writing erotic fantasies. He tells Hakan about an erotic fantasy that he wrote based on an event occured between Salih and Özlem. Hakan dissapointed and confused heads toward Özlem’s house to learn about the whole thing. Özlem was very scared when she sees Hakan.

İnan Temelkuran

Born in Izmir, Turkey in 1976, İnan Temelkuran graduated from Bornova Anatolian High School in 1994. After earning a law degree from Ankara University in 1998 he won a scholarship from the Spanish government to research Spain’s Franco era through the film industry. He started film school at TAI Superior School of Visual Arts in 2000, where he earned a degree as a Film Director in 2003. With his 2004 short documentary about a Turkish wedding in Madrid, he won the Best Short Documentary Award in the Young Art Festival. Returning to Turkey in 2005, he got a master of arts degree from Marmara University, Fine Arts School, Cinema TV department in 2008.

He completed his first feature movie “Made in Europe” in 2007 after nearly four years of filming in four countries. With “Made in Europe” he won the Best Director and the Grand Jury Yılmaz Güney Special Prize ($100,000) in the 2008 Adana Golden Boll Film Festival. The movie’s 18 male actors shared the festival’s Best Actor award. In the same year, he won Most Promising Director in the Ankara Film Festival. In the beginning of 2009 he was selected as Most Promising Artist by SIYAD, Turkey’s film critic’s association.

He completed his second feature “Bornova, Bornova” in May 2009, which premiered in the 2009 Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival.

IFF Rotterdam | Black Dogs Barking

IFFR 2009 | Signals: Young Turkish Cinema 2009



A dynamic shooting-style, pitch-perfect written street lingo and a transfixing dog-eat-dog story form the essence of this exciting first feature about two friends who get into deep trouble in Istanbul’s chaotic underground scene. At times funny, at times tragic, but foremostly, jolting in its authenticity.

Restless and young, best buddies Selim and Çaça live a meagre existence on the outskirts of Istanbul. Their neighbourhood's view of the city's gigantic business towers accelerates their ambitions. By day they grow pigeons on the roof, by night they drive their pimped-up car, 'My Orange Angel', and roam the mean streets with their entourage. The two buddies want to open up their own parking-lot business near a gigantic mall, and they just might get lucky, since they’re supported by the local mafia boss. But everyone wants a slice of the cake and the mall’s dodgy security contractor, Sait, is not so willing to let his 'turf' slide to these up-and-coming lads. Plus, the cops are on the boys’ tail to gather evidence against the mafia’s now 'legalized' activities. It isn’t long before Selim and Çaça’s dreams will be shattered when they find themselves in water over their heads. This sizzling début feature from Mehmet Bahadir Er and Maryna Gorbach, shot in a verité style, captures a verisimilitude representative of the many unemployed young Turkish men who just want to make a better life for themselves. Submerged in poverty and the prevailing macho culture, it is no surprise that they become victims of violence. Bustling with energy with its in-yer-face attitude, Black Dogs Barking proudly takes over On Board's (1988) legacy of the working class anti-heroes. (EY)

Director Mehmet Bahadir Er
Maryna Gorbach
Producer Mehmet Bahadir Er
Sales Kara Kirmizi Film
Print source Kara Kirmizi Film
Scenario Mehmet Bahadir Er
Cast Cemal Toktas
Volga Sorgu Tekinoglu
Erkan Can
Ayfer Dönmez
Taylan Ertugrul
Ergun Kuyucu
Mehmet Usta
Muhammed Cangören
Murat Daltaban
Photography Sviatoslav Bulakovskyi
Editor Maryna Gorbach, Mehmet Bahadir Er
Art design Serdar Yilmaz
Length 88'

Mehmet Bahadir Er

Mehmet Bahadir ER (1982, Turkey) is student at the film school in Istanbul. The Earthquake (2005), one of his short films, won an award for Best Short at the Istanbul Independent Film Festival. Black Dogs Barking (2008) is his first feature.
Goygoy (2004, short), Zilzal/The Earthquake (2005, short)[1], Umut/Hope (2006, short), Araf/The Heights (2007, short), Kara köpekler havlarken/Black Dogs Barking (2009, co-dir)

Maryna Gorbach

Maryna GORBACH (1981, Ukraine) graduated from Kyiv National University of Theatre, Cinema and TV in 2006. Her first short film The Jar (2004) won awards at different international festivals. The Debt (2006) was her graduation film. Black Dogs Barking (2008) is her first feature. The Jar (2004, short), The Debt (2006, short), Kara köpekler havlarken/Black Dogs Barking (2009, co-dir)


[1] IFFR 07 | The Earthquake pays homage to the 15,000 victims at least killed by a major earthquake that took place in 1999 in north-western Turkey. A girl is trapped in a collapsed house. She finds her video camera.
Director/Producer/Screenplay: Mehmet Bahadir Er
Cast Diba Ener, Gülsen Er
Photography Diba Ener, Mehmet Bahadir Er
Editor Mehmet Bahadir Er
Length 14'

'Min Dit' makes waves at Antalya film fest

Source: Hurriyet Daily News The Golden Orange Film Festival sparked controversy Thursday with its screening of “Min Dit” (The Children of Diyarbakır), the first Kurdish-language movie to be part of the national competition in Antalya. The debut feature film by Miraz Bezar, a filmmaker of Kurdish origin who was born in Ankara and moved to Germany when he was six years old, drew a large audience. “Min Dit” had previously been screened at international film festivals abroad, winning the Gaztea Youth Award at the 57th San Sebastian International Film Festival held in Spain last month. Set in the 1990s in the eastern part of Turkey, the movie tells the story of 10-year-old Gülistan (Şenay Orak) and her younger brother Fırat (Muhammed Al), whose lives take a tragic turn on the road that connects the cities of Diyarbakır and Batman. After witnessing their parents’ death at the hands of a secret service paramilitary officer on the way home from a wedding, the siblings try to stay alive, first selling the family furniture, and later living in the streets when they can no long afford to pay the rent. Because Bezar grew up in Germany, all he knew about the Kurdish issue and the situation in eastern Turkey was what he saw on TV and read in the newspapers. “I wanted to go to Diyarbakır after I completed my degree at the Berlin Film Academy and experience the situation myself,” he said. There, he found that each person in the city had his or her own stories to tell. Once he decided to write the script for “Min Dit” he went back to Germany to develop the scenario. Bezar wrote all the dialogue in Turkish and had most of it translated into Kurdish for the film, which was co-produced by producer Klaus Maeck and well-known director Fatih Akın, who got involved after Bezar showed him the rough cut. According to Bezar, choosing the cast was not difficult. He watched one of his lead actors, Hakan Karsak, on a theater stage in Diyarbakır and was taken by his passion and talent. The casting of the children in the film also happened quickly: Bezar was lucky to meet Orak and Al on a bus after being invited on the trip by a group of children who were traveling to Urfa. The third leading child’s role was given to Suzan İlir. “She was trying to sell me a bottle of water in one of the cemeteries in Diyarbakır,” Bezar said. “She at first did not want to tell me her name, but I finally convinced her that I was going to shoot a film. I went to meet her parents and that’s how she joined the crew.” The first-time director was not expecting his film to compete at Antalya’s Golden Orange Film Festival. He looked proud to be competing with the films of successful directors. “No matter what, I finally did what I wanted to do,” he said. To help him shoot the film, Bezar’s mother sold her house and his uncle paid the team’s hotel expenses. The project kicked off with a budget of just 80,000 euros. “There are still team members who have not gotten paid,” Bezar said. “Some of them did it to support the film.” Making the movie was also a new experience for its child stars. Orak, the 10-year-old girl who plays the leading role, had never acted professionally before, but turned in a superb performance. “My only acting experience was the theater classes I attended in at the culture center in Diyarbakır,” she said. The mother in the film is played by Fahriye Çelik and the character of the father, a Kurdish journalist, by Alişan Önlü. A newborn baby also features in the movie. The children’s aunt Yekbun, played by Berivan Eminoğlu, is an underground Kurdish activist. After the death of their parents, she tries to get a visa to take the siblings to their grandfather in Sweden, but she is kidnapped by the paramilitary police, leaving the children completely alone. While digging in the garbage to find something to fill their stomachs with, Gülistan and Fırat meet an experienced street kid named Zelal, played by İlir, who teaches them the basics of survival. Gülistan also earns some money from Dilara, played by Berivan Ayaz, a prostitute who uses her as a cover but genuinely cares about the young girl. When Fırat sees one of the men who killed his parents, Nuri (Hakan Karsak), the boy is paralyzed by fear. In the days that follow, the paths of the two children, along with those of Dilara and Nuri, intersect in ways that have surprising impact due to the unexpected restraint with which they’re played. In the film, Bezar manages to keep his child characters as real as possible without turning them into mere sympathy magnets. He also succeeds in displaying the various sides of the city. “Some in the audience ask if children face these situations in real life,” Bezar said. “With some exceptions, all live under such circumstances; they grow up in an atmosphere of peak violence.” Some audience members at the festival, mostly Antalya locals, called the film one-sided, shouting in protest, “There has never been a Kurdish state and there will never be one.” In the face of such critics, Bezar kept his cool and said that he is there to talk about these issues. “Cinema is a form of art,” he said. “People do not have to agree with or believe in what they saw.” One of the actors in the film, Diyarbakır native Alişan Önlü, added: “We, as a nation, try to understand the children in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Palestine, but we never consider the situation of the children living in this conflicted city. Now it is time to look at life from the perspective of a southeastern child.”

11’e 10 kala / 10 to 11 by Pelin Esmer

10 to 11 movie trailer


This is the story of a passionate collector, Mithat, and the concierge of his building, Ali. For Mithat, Istanbul is as vast as his collections, while for Ali, who comes from a country village, it is nothing more than a few blocks around him. When the neighbours decide to have the building rebuilt for fear of earthquakes and the desire for a more valuable house, Mithat's most challenging struggle to save his collections begins. The building becomes the common destiny of these two men living alone, who will involuntarily change each other's fate.


Pelin Esmer
Istanbul, 1972. Her first work as a director, Koleksiyoncu (The Collector, 2002), won the Best Documentary Award at Rome Independent Film Festival. Her next work, Oyun (The Play, 2005), was premiered in Zabaltegi-New Directors at San Sebastian Festival and bagged the Best New Documentary Director Award at Tribeca Festival. 11’e 10 kala, her first fiction feature, won the Special Jury Prize at Istanbul Festival in 2009. She founded her own company, Sinefilm, in 2005.

Kosmos by Reha Erdem

KOSMOS-Reha Erdem
Kosmos by Reha Erdem
trailer

Kurdish Cinema

Kurdish Cinema part 1



Kurdish Cinema part 2

Hamburg Award for Min Dit

The young talents award Die Elfe (lit: the elf) is donated by Neue Sentimental Film Hamburg GmbH (NSF), and is endowed with 5,000 euros. The prize goes to “Before my Eyes” (WT) or “Min Dit – The Children Of Diyarbakir” by the German-Kurdish director Miraz Bezar, who previously won the “Gaztea Youth Award” in San Sebastian. The winner was decided on by a jury of three, consisting of Sigrid Berenberg, first Chairwoman of Kultwerk West, actress Imogen Kogge and director Kai Wessel. The jury’s verdict on the first film from Turkey to be shot in the Kurdish language praises the director “Bezar, who tears open this story, in all its colourfulness, bleakness, horror, but also full of humour and vitality, with grandiose encounters and coincidences that gently jostle the story along,” and valued the film as being “astounding and absolutely electrifying”.

Director: Miraz Bezar

Screenplay: Miraz Bezar

Cast: Senay Orak, Muhammet Al, Hakan Karsak, Berîvan Ayaz

Producer: Miraz Bezar, Klaus Maeck, Fatih Akin

Orig. Titel: Min Dit
Section: Agenda 09
Original language: Kurdish/Turkish
Filmtype: Fiction Feature
Music: Mustafa Mesrop Biber
DoP: Isabelle Casez
Set Designer: Pinar Soydinç
Editor: Miraz Bezar
Format: 35 mm

World Sales: The Match Factory GmbH, Balthasarstrasse 79-81, 50670 Köln, Germany, Tel: +49 221 539 709-0, Fax: +49 221 539 70910, email: info@matchfactory.de, www.the-match-factory.com
Production Company: Bezar Film & Corazón International corazón international GmbH & Co KG Ditmar-Koel-Str. 26 20459 Hamburg

Miraz Bezar

Miraz Bezar, born in 1971,Ankara, Turkey writer and director of various award winning short films.“Before My Eyes/Children of Diyarbekir” is his feature film debut. Filmography 2009 Before my Eyes 1997 Fern 1995 Berivan

The Children of Diyarbakir / Min dit

MIN DIT has been awarded with the "Gaztea Youth Award" of the San Sebastian Filmfestival

Reviewed at San Sebastian
The Children of Diyarbakir / Min dit (Germany/Turkey)
By JAY WEISSBERG


A Bezar Film, Corazon Intl. production. (International sales: the Match Factory, Cologne.) Produced by Miraz Bezar. Co-producers, Klaus Maeck, Fatih Akin. Directed, written, edited by Miraz Bezar.

With: Senay Orak, Muhammed Al, Hakan Karsak, Suzan Ilir, Berivan Ayaz, Fahriye Celik, Alisan Onlu, Berivan Eminoglu, Mehmet Inci, Cekdar Korkusuz, Recep Ozer.
(Kurdish, Turkish dialogue)

An extraordinary performance by a 10-year-old girl anchors "The Children of Diyarbakir," the debut feature of Miraz Bezar. Set in the predominantly Kurdish city of Diyarbakir, Turkey, the pic takes a straightforward, non-sensationalized approach to the tragic story of a brother and sister orphaned when their parents are assassinated by a secret-services paramilitary officer. Though it shows its first-feature origins, the film has moments, especially toward the end, that so transcend the material as to make the journey doubly worthwhile. A healthy fest life is assured, while Euro arthouse play isn't out of the question.

Though less inspired, the early scenes do the necessary work of introducing characters and establishing a mood: Gulistan (Senay Orak) and her younger brother, Firat (Muhammed Al), have a normal childhood with their mom (Fahriye Celik) and dad (Alisan Onlu) and new baby brother. Dad is a Kurdish journalist; on their way back from a wedding, the family is stopped by three gunmen, who shoot the parents dead in front of the kids. The brief scene is all the more powerful because Bezar downplays any excess in either the lensing or editing.

The kids' aunt Yekbun (Berivan Eminoglu), an underground Kurdish activist, moves in to care for them, but as she tries to get a visa to take them to their grandpa in Sweden, she's kidnapped by the paramilitary police and the children are left completely alone. As the weeks pass, they start selling everything in the apartment just to have food to eat, but it's not enough for medicine for the baby.

Kicked out of their home, Gulistan and Firat meet worldly-wise street kid Zelal (Suzan Ilir), who teaches them the basics of survival. Gulistan is also befriended by Dilara (Berivan Ayaz), a prostitute who uses her as a cover but genuinely cares about the young girl. When Firat sees one of their parents' killers, Nuri (Hakan Karsak), the boy is paralyzed by fear; in the days that follow, the paths of the two children, along with those of Dilara and Nuri, will all intersect in ways that have surprising impact due to the unexpected restraint with which they're played.

It's precisely Bezar's ability to hold back that allows this street-orphan tale to rise above the usual treatment of the subject. Bezar (born in Turkey, raised in Germany) keeps the kids as real as possible without turning them into merely cute sympathy magnets; he also reveals a city in all its multiple facets, from dying neighborhoods to leafy residential sections where the privileged live, unmoved by or apathetic toward Kurdish repression.

The cast of mostly unknowns can be uneven, but Orak is haunting as 10-year-old Gulistan. With large brown eyes taking in everything around her, this young nonpro is astonishingly real as she searches for ways to get herself and her brother through each day.

Fatih Akin boarded as co-producer through his production house, Corazon Intl., after Bezar showed him a rough cut. Tech credits reflect the modest budget, and the transfer from HD can't disguise a certain flatness in lighting, but the overall look is more than acceptable. Presumably, the final rap song was chosen for its message and thus requires subtitling.

Camera (color, widescreen, HD-to-35mm), Isabelle Casez; music, Mustafa Biber; production designer, Pinar Soydinc; costume designer, Ozlem Batur; sound (Dolby Digital), Garip Ozden, Daniel Weis; associate producers, Saliha Kutlay, Flaminio Zadra. Reviewed at San Sebastian Film Festival (Zabaltegi New Directors), Sept. 22, 2009. Running time: 101 MIN.