Ceylan's Latest Slated for Cannes

Writer, Director Nuri Bilge Ceylan's latest film, BIR ZAMANLAR ANADOLU'DA was selected for the main sectionn of the 64th Cannes Film Festival running May 11-22, 2011. Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (TR: Bir Zamanlar Anadolu) is Turkish film, starring Yılmaz Erdoğan as a doctor living on the Anatolia. Also starring: Taner Birsel, Ahmet Mumtaz Taylan and Muhammet Uzuner. Gokcecan Gursoy (Av mevsimi, Ask Tesadüfleri Sever, GORA)provided post production visual effects.

Jury Presidents along with all the films were also announced.

JURY Main Competition: Robert DE NIRO, JURY CINEFONDATION and Short Films: Michel GONDRY, JURY UN CERTAIN REGARD : Emir KUSTURICA, JURY CAMERA D’OR: BONG Joon-Ho

"So far, the surprising omissions from the list are Andrei Zvyagintsev's Elena, about an old woman attempting to rescue her alcoholic son from poverty, Yorgos Lanthimos's Alps, about a night nurse who runs a bizarre psycho-therapeutic bereavement service, and Brillante Mendoza's Prey, starring Isabelle Huppert as a woman abducted by an Islamist separatist group. But the whispers are that at least one of these films – probably Alps – will be added to the competition list in the coming weeks." Guardian

"Mavi Boncuk |Opening Film |

Out of Competition
Woody ALLEN | MIDNIGHT IN PARIS 1h40

Competition
Pedro ALMODÓVAR LA PIEL QUE HABITO 2h00
Bertrand BONELLO L'APOLLONIDE - SOUVENIRS DE LA MAISON CLOSE 2h02
Alain CAVALIER PATER 1h45
Joseph CEDAR HEARAT SHULAYIM (Footnote) 1h45
Nuri Bilge CEYLAN | BIR ZAMANLAR ANADOLU'DA (Once upon a time in Anatolia) 2h30
Jean-Pierre et Luc DARDENNE LE GAMIN AU VÉLO 1h27
Aki KAURISMÄKI LE HAVRE 1h43
Naomi KAWASE HANEZU NO TSUKI 1h31
Julia LEIGH SLEEPING BEAUTY - First Film - 1h44
MAÏWENN POLISSE 2h01
Terrence MALICK THE TREE OF LIFE 2h18
Radu MIHAILEANU LA SOURCE DES FEMMES 2h15
Takashi MIIKE ICHIMEI (Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samuraï) 2h06
Nanni MORETTI HABEMUS PAPAM 1h42
Lynne RAMSAY WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN 1h50
Markus SCHLEINZER MICHAEL - First Film - 1h34
Paolo SORRENTINO THIS MUST BE THE PLACE 1h58
Lars VON TRIER MELANCHOLIA 2h10
Nicolas WINDING REFN DRIVE 1h35

Cannes 2009 | Eastern Plays by kamen Kalev

Eastern Plays | Bulgaria, Sweden - 1h23 (2009) Directed, written by Kamen Kalev.
Film Info in PDF

Produced by Kamen Kalev, Stefan Piryov, Fredrik Zander. Executive producer, Maya Vitkova. Co-producers, Anguel Christanov, Thomas Eskilksson. (Bulgarian, Turkish, English dialogue)

Cast: Christo Christov, Ovanes Torosian, Saadet Isil Aksoy, Nikolina Yancheva, Ivan Nalbantov, Krasimira Demireva, Hatice Aslan, Kerem Atabeyoglu, Chavdar Sokolov, Alexander "The Indian" Radanov, Anjela Nedialkova, Ivan Vitkov.

Synopsis: Two brothers who've lost all contact are suddenly brought together when they have opposite roles in a racist beating : while Georgi who's recently joined a neonazi group participates in the violence, Itzo witnesses and rescues the Turkish family.
Georgi, now being asked to participate in larger events, starts to question his implication in the movement and Itzo wonders if the beautiful Turkish girl he saved could be his ticket out from his sad life in Sofia. Only by reuniting will the two brothers be able to assess what they really want from life. (more...)

Production : Waterfront Film | Bacho Kiro 39 1202 Sofia Bulgaria
Tél : +359 2 985 2300 | info@waterfrontfilm.net | www.waterfrontfilm.net

Co-Production : Chimney Pot (Suède) | Film i Väst AB (Suède)

foreign sales : Memento Films International
6 cité paradis 75010 Paris France
Tél : +33 (0)1 53 34 90 20 | Fax : +33 (0)1 42 47 11 24
sales@memento-films.com | festival@memento-films.com | www.memento-films.com

KAMEN KALEV
Kamen Kalev was born in Burgas, Bulgaria in 1975. He graduated from the Femis Film School, Paris. Kamen's short films Orpheus, Maltonius Olbren, Get The Rabbit Back, Rabbit Troubles were presented and received awards at many International films festival such as Cannes, Berlin, Clermont-Ferrant, NY Film Festival, Locarno, Stockholm, Sarajevo... He also directed over 60 commercials and a number of muisic videos.

KAMEN KALEV Filmography

2009 : Eastern Plays
2007 : Rabbit Troubles (cm / short)
2005 : Get The Rabbit Back (cm / short)
2002 : Orpheus (cm / short)
2001 : Maltonius Olbren (cm / short)


Bulgarian movie “Eastern Plays” selected for Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes
On May 17, 2009 Bulgarian movie “Eastern Plays”, directed by Kamen Kalev premiered in Cannes. It will compete for the Camera D'or Award given to debut films. According to Olivier Pere, Directors’ Fortnight director, “Eastern Plays” is “original, moving and profound, and the actors are just amazing”. The film is a real find, he says. It is a low-budget one with many of the crew working for free. Private investor Angel Hristanov supported the shots financially. During a film festival in Sarajevo Kamen met Peter Gustavson, Director of a Swiss Film Fund, who also lent a helping hand. Three well-known Turkish actors play for free as well.

Turkish Director Fêted in Cannes, Ignored at Home

Turkish director, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, poses after winning Best Director prize at the Closing Ceremony of the 61st Cannes International Film Festival on May 25, 2008.

ANNE-CHRISTINE POUJOULAT / AFP / Getty Images


Tuesday, May. 27, 2008

Turkish Director Fêted in Cannes, Ignored at Home
By PELIN TURGUT/ISTANBUL

Celebrated Turkish filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylan was awarded Best Director in Cannes on Sunday. Perhaps now Turks will finally go see his movies. Despite being heralded globally for his movie magic, Ceylan's films — slow-paced, poetic tales of individuals struggling against the bleak backdrop of modern Turkey — routinely flop back home. Distant, a previous Cannes competitor, was seen by just 20,000 people in Turkey — only one-fourth as many as saw it in France. His current Cannes winner, Three Monkeys, has yet to sell to Turkish TV, which has deemed it too arty.

It is true that Ceylan's films are never easy going, but in a country of 70 million, 20,000 viewers seems, well, a little pathetic. Are Turks a nation of cultural philistines? Critics bemoaning the dearth of interest in cultural fare (book sales are shrinking along with art-house film audiences) point to a brutal 1980 military coup as the start of this malaise. The generals ushered in an era of economic liberalization and anything-goes cowboy capitalism that rapidly transformed the country into a consumerist McHeaven. Turgut Ozal, who served as prime minister from 1983 to 1989 and as president from 1989 to 1993, famously declared that his dream was for Turkey to become "a little America." And he wasn't talking about liberty. Today, Turkey is home to Europe's youngest population, and one of the world's fastest growing consumer markets with brands like Starbucks, Topshop and Ikea booming. One brand manager told me that in his view, the country's shopping malls (60 new ones opening this year) are "paved with gold."

The buying binge is, of course, a worldwide phenomenon. But in Turkey, unlike similar developing countries like Brazil or India, it is underpinned by a deep distaste for the arts. After the 1980 coup, tens of thousands of leftists were imprisoned and often tortured. Newspapers and magazines were banned, politics was forbidden in schools and universities and free speech stifled by draconian laws, some of which are still on the books. With intellectualism effectively quashed, the end result was a cultural vacuum. Recovering has not been easy.

Then again, to give Turkish audiences their credit, maybe Ceylan's previous films were just really, really slow. "Viewers have become used to the fast-paced style of ads, music videos and news shows that jump from scene to scene; this manifests itself in an impatience towards films which tease their stories out slowly," says Firat Yucel, editor of the film magazine Altyazi.

If that's the case, they can take heart: Cannes award winner Three Monkeys is an engrossing tale of an Istanbul family torn apart by their secrets. In tone, if not style, it is a departure for Ceylan and has even been described as a thriller, albeit a meditative one. "Hopefully the Cannes charm might coax viewers into giving Ceylan a chance," says film critic Emrah Guler. And if that's not enough to get Turkish moviegoers to the theaters, the director stands in good company, with the likes of Woody Allen, of filmmakers embraced by the arty French but neglected at home.

Cannes | From Turkey with love: return of one of Cannes favourite sons

From Turkey with love: return of one of Cannes favourite sons

CANNES, France (AFP) — One of Cannes' favourite film-makers, Turkey's Nuri Bilge Ceylan, returned to the film festival offering a breather from hard-hitting movies on social themes with a highly personal family drama.

Ceylan, almost 40 and already winner of a batch of awards for his first four features, is regarded as one of the most distinctive film-makers of the last decade.

His latest offering, "Three Monkeys", a searing family tragedy revolving around jealousy, is his third appearance in competition at Cannes, where the movie is tipped as a front-runner among the 22 vying for the festival's prestigious Palme d'Or award.

"The film is about life, about many things, about the inner world," he said Thursday. "I don't make films on this or that as that is too didactic. And by the time I've ended a film the idea may have changed."

After running over a man at night, a politician running for election bribes his driver to claim responsibility for the accident. But while the man is in prison, the politician seduces the driver's wife, and her son , a young adult, sees it all.

Ceylan, maker of "Uzak" and "Climates", is a master of psychological subtlety and intimacy, shooting meticulously beautiful images helped by his use of high-definition digital video.

"Digital is easier to edit, cheaper and gives you more control over the level of acting," he told AFP. "My style is to have lots of material, I like to shoot the same scene several times, with an actor perhaps crying in one scene and then laughing in the next. Then I decide which I like best."

In "Three Monkeys", Ceylan focuses his camera strictly on the four characters, showing how the family opts to stick together by playing blind, deaf and dumb to problems that should in all logic split them apart.

"I find the family quite tragic in life, it's one of the most tragic things in life," he told AFP. "I suffered a lot from that. I feel that in a family what they live is a summary of society, of life.

"In life people often behave as if they didn't see, didn't hear, didn't say. That is how we protect ourselves so as not to suffer."

After two days of hard-hitting films focussing on global issues and social problems, Ceylan, along with France's first entry "A Christmas Tale", struck a different note, at the festival.

Variety Review | Three Monkeys

Cannes
Three Monkeys
Uc maymun (Turkey-France-Italy)
By JUSTIN CHANG

Dark drama 'Three Monkeys' offers adultery, murder and gloom.

A Pyramide Distribution (in France) release of a Zeynofilm, NBC Film (Turkey)/Pyramide Prods. (France)/Bim Distribuzione (Italy) production, in association with Imaj, with the participation of Ministere de la Culture et du Tourisme Turc, Eurimages, CNC. (International sales: Pyramide Intl., Paris.) Produced by Zeynep Ozbatur. Co-producers, Fabienne Vonier, Valerio de Paolis, Cemal Noyan, Nuri Bilge Ceylan. Directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan. Screenplay, Ebru Ceylan, Ercan Kesal, Nuri Bilge Ceylan. With: Yavuz Bingol, Hatice Aslan, Ahmet Rifat Sungar, Ercan Kesal.(Turkish dialogue)


Seeing, hearing and speaking no evil comes all too easily to the tortured trio in "Three Monkeys," a powerfully bleak family drama that leaves its characters' offenses largely offscreen but lingers with agonizing, drawn-out deliberation on the consequences. Bad faith, simmering resentment, adultery and murder all figure into Nuri Bilge Ceylan's darkly burnished fifth feature, giving it a stronger narrative undertow than his previous Cannes competition entries, "Distant" and "Climates." But gripping as the film often is, its unrelenting doom and gloom offers fewer lasting rewards, making it unlikely to draw sizable arthouse crowds beyond the Turkish helmer's fanbase.

Opening shot of aging Turkish politician Servet (Ercan Kesal), falling asleep at the wheel as he drives through the woods at night, not only foreshadows the monochrome misery to come but also establishes the film's dramatic m.o. Rather than showing the subsequent collision, Ceylan cuts to a forest clearing where a pedestrian lies dead in the background and Servet, trembling with fear in the foreground, determines to hide his guilt.

Emphasis on aftermath rather than action is significant: The one who ends up paying for Servet's crime is his longtime personal driver, Eyup (Yavuz Bingol), who takes the rap after Servet's promise of a hefty lump sum upon his release. As Eyup's prison term drags on for months, his beautiful wife Hacer (Hatice Aslan) and aimless teenage son Ismail (Ahmet Rifat Sungar) grow impatient and restless in their seaside flat, prompting Hacer to ask Servet for an advance.

Servet, who's just lost an important election, makes good on his promise, though the indelicate nature of his agreement with Hacer -- again, made clear to the audience with no explicit imagery -- can't be kept hidden for long from Ismail. The troubled youth, in turn, has a hard time concealing the truth from Eyup when the latter re-enters the picture, creating a pressure-cooker scenario that Ceylan plays out for maximum emotional tension at an achingly measured tempo.

Though he eventually serves up an entire potboiler's worth of past tragedies and festering secrets, Ceylan takes a characteristically oblique approach. Screenplay (credited to the helmer, his wife Ebru Ceylan and Ercan Kesal) dwells mainly on the characters' inability to communicate -- the film offers lots of awkward silences and angsty brooding, but precious little eye contact -- making the inevitable angry outbursts all the more affecting.

Primary thesps are superbly convincing as a dysfunctional unit. Absent for most of the first half, Bingol dominates the second with his volatile fits of temper. Aslan is both maddening and sympathetic as the frustrated seductress, and handsome Sungar has heartbreaking moments as a son who, it's suggested, has borne more than his fair share of the emotional burdens.

While Servet's selfish actions impel the drama forward, the political content and latent class tensions never distract from the core dynamic. But "Three Monkeys" reaches the point of diminishing returns in its final reels, as the tale relaxes its vise-like grip and its machinations begin to seem transparent and overdetermined in retrospect. And aside from a darkly comic cell-phone ringtone that steals every scene it's in, the wry humor that made "Distant" so memorable is mostly absent here.
Reteaming with "Climates" d.p. Gokhan Tiryaki, Ceylan again offers beautifully composed HD images of exceptional depth and texture. In keeping with the angst-ridden tenor, however, his color palette seems deliberately murkier and more constrained than usual, occasionally drifting past sepia into the realms of puke-green. In some ways, the extraordinarily crisp and detailed soundscape is even more impressive, making audible the scrape of tires on gravel and the unyielding rhythms of the sea.

Camera (color, HD, widescreen), Gokhan Tiryaki; editors, Ayhan Ergursel, Bora Goksingol, Nuri Bilge Ceylan; art director, Ebru Ceylan; sound (Dolby Digital), Olivier Goinard; sound editor, Umut Senyol; assistant director, Ayla Karli Tezgoren. Reviewed at Cannes Film Festival (competing), May 15, 2008. Running time: 109 MIN

Cannes 2008 | Three Monkeys

May 16, 2008

Cannes. Three Monkeys.

"An ostensibly routine noir-style psychological thriller vaults into the realms of high art in competition contender Three Monkeys" writes Jonathan Romney in Screen Daily.

"Cannes has been kind to Turkey's Nuri Bilge Ceylan in the past, with Uzak and Climates establishing his auteur credentials here in 2003 and 2006. His new film represents a bold departure from his past style: it's best described as introspective melodrama, yet both visually and tonally, it's still quintessential Ceylan."

"Seeing, hearing and speaking no evil comes all too easily to the tortured trio in Three Monkeys, a powerfully bleak family drama that leaves its characters' offenses largely offscreen but lingers with agonizing, drawn-out deliberation on the consequences," writes Justin Chang in Variety. "Bad faith, simmering resentment, adultery and murder all figure into Nuri Bilge Ceylan's darkly burnished fifth feature, giving it a stronger narrative undertow than his previous Cannes competition entries, Distant and Climates."

"I was hooked from the get-go - gripped, fascinated," writes Jeffrey Wells. "I was in a fairly excited state because I knew - I absolutely knew - I was seeing the first major film of the festival.... It's a very dark and austere film that unfolds at a purposeful but meditative (which absolutely doesn't mean "slow") pace, taking its time and saying to the audience, 'Don't worry, this is going somewhere... we're not jerking around so pay attention to the steps.'"


Updates: "On the surface, the best film here so far for me - Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Three Monkeys - is only very superficially about incarceration, in that the story is quickly kick-started when a local politician facing elections persuades his driver to take the rap for him after the former knocks over a man with his car; in return he'll pay his employee's salary to his teenage son, and hand over a large lump sum when he emerges from prison after six months or so," writes Geoff Andrew for Time Out. "But if we actually see only a couple of prison-set scenes, when the son visits his father, that doesn't mean that imprisonment isn't a central, almost Dostoievskian metaphor for what happens to the driver, his wife and son, and the the politician.... It's been bought for the UK, so when it turns up, see it - and marvel!"

"[I]t's largely commonplace, drear, and claustrophobic," writes Glenn Kenny. "One finds oneself frustrated by the stories Ceylan chooses not to tell - the would-be politician who sets the film's plot into motion seems a more interesting character than anybody in the family whose lives he effects - and by his too-insistent emphases, e.g., a bit involving an idiosyncratic ring tone that's funny and wrenching the first time, still effective the second, and stale the third. The movie's not bad, but it's not terribly special, either."

"[L]eft me cold," writes the Boston Globe's Ty Burr. "It's a familial melodrama of infidelity and incrimination that James M Cain could have made hay with but that gets slowed down to a portentous Antonioni crawl by the director."

Cannes 2007 Review "The Edge of Heaven "

The Edge of Heaven By Ray Bennett
Bottom Line: Intricate and moving drama about life's struggles and near misses.

May 24, 2007

Akin's tale is about two families whose fate becomes entwined.

CANNES -- Director Fatih Akin continues his insightful exploration of the things that divide and bridge different cultures and generations in his absorbing In Competition film "The Edge of Heaven." Like his 2004 Berlin Golden Bear winner "Head-On," the film deals with Turkish folk living in Germany but this time he brings his story back to Istanbul. Love was his topic in the earlier film, and now Akin turns his attention to death. It may not be a wise thing to label the major chapters announcing the deaths of key characters, but he tells their stories with flair and compassion. Audiences that responded to "Head-On" will be pleased with "Heaven," and festival and art house prospects look good.The director, who also wrote the script, achieves a keen-eyed view of the Turkish expatriates in this film while sustaining his remarkable ability to make them universal. His tale is about two families whose fate becomes entwined in ways they don't discover within the time frame of the film.It starts in Germany with Turkish immigrant Ali (Tuncel Kurtiz), a crusty retired widower whose son Nejat (Baki Davrak) is a successful academic. Uncouth but charismatic, Ali still seeks pleasures of the flesh, which is how he meets Yeter (Nursel Kose), a severely beautiful Turkish woman who works in a brothel. Taken with her charms and pleased to be speaking his native tongue, Ali proposes that he become her sole customer and asks her to move in with him.
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Cannes 2007 Review "Egg/Yumurta"

Egg/Yumurta By Duane Byrge

Bottom Line: Saadet Askoy lights up an otherwise dull and dim drama.May 24, 2007

CANNES -- Yusuf, a withdrawn poet living in Istanbul, returns to his tiny hometown for his mother's funeral. He's been distanced, not only geographically but emotionally: Yusuf has not kept close contact with his mother. Basically, he's sort of a somnambulist. Nothing much arouses him, though we give him the benefit of the doubt that his stoic demeanor at his mother's funeral really masks deep grief.Hoping to get back to his solitary life as a used book store owner, Yusuf is nonetheless distracted by the vibrant beauty Ayla, who has been caring for his mother the past several years. Despite his dour, uncommunicative ways, things meander forward with Ayla. Deadened by filmmaker Semih Kaplanoglu's drab aesthetic, "Yumurta" seems unlikely to travel beyond the borders of Turkey where, evidently, Turks will appreciate certain nuances. In pacing and vitality, this Directors' Fortnight entrant is almost as listless as its drab lead character. Plaudits to Saadet Askoy for her radiant turn as Ayla; she lights up an otherwise dull and dim drama.