Saturday, February 05, 2011
Bio | Beren Yüce
Seren YÜCE (1975, Turkey) studied archaeology and then worked as directing assistant on various television programmes. Yüce then made the transition to the film world as assistant director on respectively A Man’s Fear of God (Özer Kiziltan, 2006), The Edge of Heaven(Fatih Akin, 2007) and Pandora’s Box (Yesim Ustaoglu, 2008). Majority is his feature debut.
Çogunluk/Majority (2010)
Bio | Belma Bas
Belma Bas
Belma BAS (1969, Ordu, Turkey) received her BA in English Literature from Istanbul University in 1992. A literary translator since 1990, she also worked full-time for Turkish film institutes as an international relations and festival manager from 1991 to 1998. Her debut short film Poyraz (Boreas) premiered in the official competition at the 59th Cannes Film Festival. Zephyr is her first feature length film.
Poyraz/Boreas (2006, short) WATCH, Zefir/Zephyr (2010)
Belma BAS (1969, Ordu, Turkey) received her BA in English Literature from Istanbul University in 1992. A literary translator since 1990, she also worked full-time for Turkish film institutes as an international relations and festival manager from 1991 to 1998. Her debut short film Poyraz (Boreas) premiered in the official competition at the 59th Cannes Film Festival. Zephyr is her first feature length film.
Poyraz/Boreas (2006, short) WATCH, Zefir/Zephyr (2010)
Rotterdam IIFR | Zephyr
Zephyr BF-2011
Teenage girl Zephyr spends her youth in the house of her grandparents, in the stunningly beautiful countryside. Every day she awaits the return of her mother. A deep look into the psyche of the girl and her discoveries about love, life and nature.
This minimalistic, beautifully photographed debut tries to fathom the actions of the 11-year-old Turkish girl Zephyr. Her globe-trotting mother has been away for years and this has deeply damaged Zephyr emotionally. She lives with her grandparents in a beautiful hilly area, where she is especially interested in the dead animals that she respectfully buries.
The fact that her mother keeps leaving has made her suspicious. She does not bond, because this only leads to saying farewell. Her grandparents lead a simple, self-sufficient life, with mushrooms and berries they pick themselves and fresh milk. Snails and spiders surround them and it looks as if Zephyr feels more at home with the animals than in the world of adult people. The soundtrack meanwhile heralds the approaching disaster.
Together with Bas' short-film debut Poyraz, the film Zephyr, made with an almost entirely non-professional cast, forms the start of the film series The Heroine's Journey Beyond Winds.
Director Belma Bas
Producer Birol Akbaba, Seyhan Kaya, FC Istanbul
Sales Medit GmbH
Print source FC Istanbul
Scenario Belma Bas
Cast Seyma Uzunlar, Vahide Gordum, Sevinc Bas, O. Rustu Bas, Fatma Uzunlar, Harun Uzunlar
Photography Mehmet Y. Zengin
Editor Berke Bas
Production design Canan Cayir
Sound design Ismail Karadas
Length 93'
Website www.zephyrfilm.com
Teenage girl Zephyr spends her youth in the house of her grandparents, in the stunningly beautiful countryside. Every day she awaits the return of her mother. A deep look into the psyche of the girl and her discoveries about love, life and nature.
This minimalistic, beautifully photographed debut tries to fathom the actions of the 11-year-old Turkish girl Zephyr. Her globe-trotting mother has been away for years and this has deeply damaged Zephyr emotionally. She lives with her grandparents in a beautiful hilly area, where she is especially interested in the dead animals that she respectfully buries.
The fact that her mother keeps leaving has made her suspicious. She does not bond, because this only leads to saying farewell. Her grandparents lead a simple, self-sufficient life, with mushrooms and berries they pick themselves and fresh milk. Snails and spiders surround them and it looks as if Zephyr feels more at home with the animals than in the world of adult people. The soundtrack meanwhile heralds the approaching disaster.
Together with Bas' short-film debut Poyraz, the film Zephyr, made with an almost entirely non-professional cast, forms the start of the film series The Heroine's Journey Beyond Winds.
Director Belma Bas
Producer Birol Akbaba, Seyhan Kaya, FC Istanbul
Sales Medit GmbH
Print source FC Istanbul
Scenario Belma Bas
Cast Seyma Uzunlar, Vahide Gordum, Sevinc Bas, O. Rustu Bas, Fatma Uzunlar, Harun Uzunlar
Photography Mehmet Y. Zengin
Editor Berke Bas
Production design Canan Cayir
Sound design Ismail Karadas
Length 93'
Website www.zephyrfilm.com
Rotterdam IIFR | Majority
Majority BF-2011
A wonderful portrait of a rural family and modern city existence, told through the life (and its problems) of a teenage boy, his relatives and friends. The director tackles present day Turkish society in a subtle and attractive way.
Mertkan (21) is a passive young man who still lives with his parents and works in the office of his father’s building company. In his spare time, he hangs round with friends and visits clubs in Istanbul. His life is stable but empty, until he meets the Kurdish Gül. His dominant, uncompromising father is very negative about Kurds and opposes their contact. The question is whether Mertkan can shake off all expectations and make his own decision.
In this powerful debut, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival where it won the Lion of the Future, Seren Yüce examines Turkish taboos in a delicate manner, using a complex father-son relationship, growing up, and the position of women in a society dominated by men.
There’s an important role in Majority for the architecture of the city, as a metaphor for the complexities of life. Yüce regards his film drama as self-criticism, criticism of Turkish society, of which he is himself part.
Programmer Note by Ludmila Cvikova:
If you ask me for my favourite film of 2010 then I will tell you I have got two: the Turkish film Majority and the Romanian one Tuesday, After Christmas. The former because of its seemingly uncomplicated look into complicated, modernizing society in Turkey. The latter because of its virtuosity in directing and acting of a few long shots that the film consists of.
I still freshly remember the excitement of the Majority-crew in Venice, after the premiere. They were standing there, on the stage, the whole group on the background of red colour and trying to get control over their excitement while one of them was translating into English what was being said. I followed the whole discussion and was amazed once again by the excellent work of the director with the actors. You would not recognize them outside the film - as they totally amalgamated with their characters.
When we got out of the cinema I knew: this is one of the strongest Turkish films of the year. Also for its sublime reflection of the subjects like family traditions and their hierarchy, modern youth within the society, military service and more.
TURKEY 2010
Director Seren Yüce
Producer Sevil Demirci, Önder Çakar Yeni Sinemacilik
Sales The Match Factory GmbH
Print source The Match Factory GmbH
Scenario Seren Yüce
Cast Bartu Kücükcaglayan, Settar Tanriögen, Nihal Koldas, Esme Madra
Photography Baris Özbicer
Editor Mary Stephen
Production design Meral Efe
Sound design Mustafa Bölükbasi
Music Gokce Akcelik
Length 102'
A wonderful portrait of a rural family and modern city existence, told through the life (and its problems) of a teenage boy, his relatives and friends. The director tackles present day Turkish society in a subtle and attractive way.
Mertkan (21) is a passive young man who still lives with his parents and works in the office of his father’s building company. In his spare time, he hangs round with friends and visits clubs in Istanbul. His life is stable but empty, until he meets the Kurdish Gül. His dominant, uncompromising father is very negative about Kurds and opposes their contact. The question is whether Mertkan can shake off all expectations and make his own decision.
In this powerful debut, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival where it won the Lion of the Future, Seren Yüce examines Turkish taboos in a delicate manner, using a complex father-son relationship, growing up, and the position of women in a society dominated by men.
There’s an important role in Majority for the architecture of the city, as a metaphor for the complexities of life. Yüce regards his film drama as self-criticism, criticism of Turkish society, of which he is himself part.
Programmer Note by Ludmila Cvikova:
If you ask me for my favourite film of 2010 then I will tell you I have got two: the Turkish film Majority and the Romanian one Tuesday, After Christmas. The former because of its seemingly uncomplicated look into complicated, modernizing society in Turkey. The latter because of its virtuosity in directing and acting of a few long shots that the film consists of.
I still freshly remember the excitement of the Majority-crew in Venice, after the premiere. They were standing there, on the stage, the whole group on the background of red colour and trying to get control over their excitement while one of them was translating into English what was being said. I followed the whole discussion and was amazed once again by the excellent work of the director with the actors. You would not recognize them outside the film - as they totally amalgamated with their characters.
When we got out of the cinema I knew: this is one of the strongest Turkish films of the year. Also for its sublime reflection of the subjects like family traditions and their hierarchy, modern youth within the society, military service and more.
TURKEY 2010
Director Seren Yüce
Producer Sevil Demirci, Önder Çakar Yeni Sinemacilik
Sales The Match Factory GmbH
Print source The Match Factory GmbH
Scenario Seren Yüce
Cast Bartu Kücükcaglayan, Settar Tanriögen, Nihal Koldas, Esme Madra
Photography Baris Özbicer
Editor Mary Stephen
Production design Meral Efe
Sound design Mustafa Bölükbasi
Music Gokce Akcelik
Length 102'
Tuesday, February 01, 2011
Audience Award for Feo Aladag's Die Fremde
Festival Premiers Plans d'Angers 2011
DIE FREMDE by Feo Aladag, Germany | AUDIENCE AWARD EUROPEAN FEATURE FILMS | 20 000 € (Ville d’Angers, Fondation Groupama Gan pour le Cinéma et Le Monde) to the French distributor for the promotion of the film. 2 000 € offered to the director by the Fondation Groupama Gan pour le Cinéma
WHEN WE LEAVE | DIE FREMDE | Feo Aladag | 2010 - Allemagne - 99mn
Germans-born Umay flees her oppressive marriage in Istanbul, taking her young son Cem with her. She is hoping to find a better life with her family in Berlin, but her unexpected arrival creates intense conflict. Her family is trapped in their conventions, torn between their love for her and the values of their community. Ultimately they decide to return Cem to his father in Turkey. To keep her son, Umay is forced to move again. She finds the inner strength to build a new life for her and Cem, but her need for her family’s love drives her to a series of ill-fated attempts at reconciliation.
Born in 1972 in Vienna, Feo Aladag studied acting in Vienna and London and also completed studies in communication sciences and psychology at the University of Vienna. She then worked as a freelance editor for daily newspaper in Austria, writing mainly about film and TV. After having written several scripts for television, she started studying in directing at the DFFB (Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie, Berlin) in 2004. The next year she founded the film production company Independent Artists Filmproduktion, based in Berlin, together with Züli Aladag. Die Fremde is the company’s first cinema feature film.
CAST AND CREW
Interprétation : Sibel Kekilli, Settar Tanriögen, Derya Alabora, Florian Lukas, Tamer Yigit, Serhad Can, Nizam Schiller
Scénario : Feo Aladag
Image : Judith Kaufmann
Son : Jörg Kidrowski
Montage : Andrea Mertens
Production : Independant Artists Filmproduktion, Joseph-Haydn-Str.1, 10557 Berlin, Allemagne / Tel : +49 30 39 74 22 12 / Email : office@independent-artists-filmproduktion.de
Ventes internationales : Telepool, München Sonnenstrasse 21, 80331 Munich, Allemagne / Tel : 49-(0)89-55-876-0 / Email : telepool@telepool.de
DIE FREMDE by Feo Aladag, Germany | AUDIENCE AWARD EUROPEAN FEATURE FILMS | 20 000 € (Ville d’Angers, Fondation Groupama Gan pour le Cinéma et Le Monde) to the French distributor for the promotion of the film. 2 000 € offered to the director by the Fondation Groupama Gan pour le Cinéma
WHEN WE LEAVE | DIE FREMDE | Feo Aladag | 2010 - Allemagne - 99mn
Germans-born Umay flees her oppressive marriage in Istanbul, taking her young son Cem with her. She is hoping to find a better life with her family in Berlin, but her unexpected arrival creates intense conflict. Her family is trapped in their conventions, torn between their love for her and the values of their community. Ultimately they decide to return Cem to his father in Turkey. To keep her son, Umay is forced to move again. She finds the inner strength to build a new life for her and Cem, but her need for her family’s love drives her to a series of ill-fated attempts at reconciliation.
Born in 1972 in Vienna, Feo Aladag studied acting in Vienna and London and also completed studies in communication sciences and psychology at the University of Vienna. She then worked as a freelance editor for daily newspaper in Austria, writing mainly about film and TV. After having written several scripts for television, she started studying in directing at the DFFB (Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie, Berlin) in 2004. The next year she founded the film production company Independent Artists Filmproduktion, based in Berlin, together with Züli Aladag. Die Fremde is the company’s first cinema feature film.
CAST AND CREW
Interprétation : Sibel Kekilli, Settar Tanriögen, Derya Alabora, Florian Lukas, Tamer Yigit, Serhad Can, Nizam Schiller
Scénario : Feo Aladag
Image : Judith Kaufmann
Son : Jörg Kidrowski
Montage : Andrea Mertens
Production : Independant Artists Filmproduktion, Joseph-Haydn-Str.1, 10557 Berlin, Allemagne / Tel : +49 30 39 74 22 12 / Email : office@independent-artists-filmproduktion.de
Ventes internationales : Telepool, München Sonnenstrasse 21, 80331 Munich, Allemagne / Tel : 49-(0)89-55-876-0 / Email : telepool@telepool.de
Jan 23, 2011
The conflict between Umay's love for her traditional family and her need to run her own modern life drives “When We Leave.” Yet the film is notable for its empathetic attention to the multiple points of view that separate Umay from her ...
Apr 24, 2010
But the star of the evening was Sibel Kekilli, who won the best actress Lola for Feo Aladag's "Fremde/When We Leave." Kekilli, who won the Lola for her debut in Fatih Akin's "Head-On" (2004) had nearly vanished from the German film ...
Oct 22, 2010
The jury about Die Fremde: “This touching story about a turkish young woman (Sibel Kekilli) in Berlin is about the new neighborhoods in which we live, in the same world, at the same place, and yet not at the same time. ...
Apr 30, 2010
Best Actress in a Narrative Feature Film – Sibel Kekilli as Umay in When We Leave (Die Fremde), directed and written by Feo Aladag. (Germany). Sponsored by Delta Air Lines. Winner receives two BusinessElite ticket vouchers for anywhere ...
A French Award for Majority by Seren Yüce
Young European filmmakers are invited to Angers to present their first films (competition of 9 full length European films) to the audience, industry professionals, and press. More than 80 films are screened in 6 official categories: European and French short and feature films, European student films and European animated films. 200,000 Euros in awards are given out by juries and the public at the end of the festival.
Jury of Festival Premiers Plans d'Angers 2011. Left to Right from the top Claude-Eric POIROUX(Délégué général), Clémence POESY, Nater T. HOMYOUN, Wen WU, Xavier KAWA-TOPOR, Yannick RENIER. (Bottom left) Carmen MAURA, Robert GUEDIGUIAN, et Tonie MARSHALL. Mardi 25 janvier 2011. (Photo: Thierry BONNET/Ville d'Angers)
GRAND JURY PRIZE EUROPEAN FEATURE FILMS (Equal)
ÇOGUNLUK (Majority) by Seren Yuce, Turkey -and- OBRATNOE DVIZHENIE (Reverse Motion) by Andrey Stempkovsky, Russia
10 000 € (Ville d’Angers, Fondation Groupama Gan pour le Cinéma, Le Monde) to the French distributor for the promotion of the film. 1 000 € to the director by the Fondation Groupama Gan pour le Cinéma. Free subtitling offered by LVT for the distribution of the film in France
Mavi Boncuk |
MAJORITY | ÇOGUNLUK | Seren Yüce | 2010 - Turquie - 102mn
Twenty-one-year-old Mertkan has a stable but unfulfilling life in Istanbul: living at home with his parents, working as an office boy in his father‘s construction company, hanging out with his buddies in shopping malls and discos. When he meets Gül, a Kurdish girl from eastern Turkey, awkward Mertkan starts to become a bit more self-confident. But Mertkan‘s father opposes any association with “those people who only want to divide our country”.
Seren Yüce was born in Istanbul in 1975. He graduated from Bilkent University of Ankara, Archeology Department. Between 1999- 2005 he worked as 1st AD on television series. In 2006, he was the 1st AD in Özer Kiziltan’s Takva / A Man’s Fear of God and 1st AD in Fatih Akin’s The Edge of Heaven. Recently, he was the 1st AD for Yesim Ustaoglu in Pandora’s Box. Çogunluk is his first feature length film.
Çogunluk is a piece of self-criticism: of myself, and of the Turkish society. […] The film is set in Istanbul, which has the typical silhouette of any developing country’s metropole, littered with a dusty mixture of yellow and grey concrete. I feel that Architecture is the clothing of a society. This “clothing” is therefore very important to me when thinking of the visual composition of the film. The way the city is clothed tells a lot about the place, its inhabitants, and affects their lifestyle, their interactions with fellow inhabitants. […] My aim is to take a look at “us” through the story of a family. It would be wrong and inadequate to generalise and summarise Turkish society by Mertkan and his family’s story. Turkey is built on many economic and cultural levels, it is composed of many diverse ethnic groups. The mentality of the ruling class is perpetuated widely into the society. Mertkan and his father are examples of this mentality and products of this perpetuation. At the moment there are numerous movements in Turkey which must be reckoned with in order to break this oppressing mentality. Through the film Çogunluk, I sincerely hope to create some awareness among today’s youth and the upcoming generations, reminding all of us that education and social change start, first and foremost, in the family.
CAST AND CREW
Cast : Bartu Küçükçaglayan, Settar Tanriögen, Nihal Koldas, Esme Madra
Scénario : Seren Yüce
Image : Bari Özbiçer
Son : Mustafa Bölükba
Montage : Mary Stephen
Production : Yeni Sinemacilik, Sevil Demirci, Önder Çakar
Ventes internationales : The Match Factory
Balthasarstr. 79 – 81
50670 Cologne Allemagne
Tel : +49 221 539 709-0 / Email : info@matchfactory.de
Jury of Festival Premiers Plans d'Angers 2011. Left to Right from the top Claude-Eric POIROUX(Délégué général), Clémence POESY, Nater T. HOMYOUN, Wen WU, Xavier KAWA-TOPOR, Yannick RENIER. (Bottom left) Carmen MAURA, Robert GUEDIGUIAN, et Tonie MARSHALL. Mardi 25 janvier 2011. (Photo: Thierry BONNET/Ville d'Angers)
GRAND JURY PRIZE EUROPEAN FEATURE FILMS (Equal)ÇOGUNLUK (Majority) by Seren Yuce, Turkey -and- OBRATNOE DVIZHENIE (Reverse Motion) by Andrey Stempkovsky, Russia
10 000 € (Ville d’Angers, Fondation Groupama Gan pour le Cinéma, Le Monde) to the French distributor for the promotion of the film. 1 000 € to the director by the Fondation Groupama Gan pour le Cinéma. Free subtitling offered by LVT for the distribution of the film in France
Mavi Boncuk |
MAJORITY | ÇOGUNLUK | Seren Yüce | 2010 - Turquie - 102mn
Twenty-one-year-old Mertkan has a stable but unfulfilling life in Istanbul: living at home with his parents, working as an office boy in his father‘s construction company, hanging out with his buddies in shopping malls and discos. When he meets Gül, a Kurdish girl from eastern Turkey, awkward Mertkan starts to become a bit more self-confident. But Mertkan‘s father opposes any association with “those people who only want to divide our country”.
Seren Yüce was born in Istanbul in 1975. He graduated from Bilkent University of Ankara, Archeology Department. Between 1999- 2005 he worked as 1st AD on television series. In 2006, he was the 1st AD in Özer Kiziltan’s Takva / A Man’s Fear of God and 1st AD in Fatih Akin’s The Edge of Heaven. Recently, he was the 1st AD for Yesim Ustaoglu in Pandora’s Box. Çogunluk is his first feature length film.
Çogunluk is a piece of self-criticism: of myself, and of the Turkish society. […] The film is set in Istanbul, which has the typical silhouette of any developing country’s metropole, littered with a dusty mixture of yellow and grey concrete. I feel that Architecture is the clothing of a society. This “clothing” is therefore very important to me when thinking of the visual composition of the film. The way the city is clothed tells a lot about the place, its inhabitants, and affects their lifestyle, their interactions with fellow inhabitants. […] My aim is to take a look at “us” through the story of a family. It would be wrong and inadequate to generalise and summarise Turkish society by Mertkan and his family’s story. Turkey is built on many economic and cultural levels, it is composed of many diverse ethnic groups. The mentality of the ruling class is perpetuated widely into the society. Mertkan and his father are examples of this mentality and products of this perpetuation. At the moment there are numerous movements in Turkey which must be reckoned with in order to break this oppressing mentality. Through the film Çogunluk, I sincerely hope to create some awareness among today’s youth and the upcoming generations, reminding all of us that education and social change start, first and foremost, in the family.CAST AND CREW
Cast : Bartu Küçükçaglayan, Settar Tanriögen, Nihal Koldas, Esme Madra
Scénario : Seren Yüce
Image : Bari Özbiçer
Son : Mustafa Bölükba
Montage : Mary Stephen
Production : Yeni Sinemacilik, Sevil Demirci, Önder Çakar
Ventes internationales : The Match Factory
Balthasarstr. 79 – 81
50670 Cologne Allemagne
Tel : +49 221 539 709-0 / Email : info@matchfactory.de
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