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

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