Cannes 2012 | Short and Sweet but Not "Silent"

From awards ceremony at Cannes 1724 GMT: 
Kylie presents the Short Film Palme d'Or, to Turkey's L Rezan Yesilbas for "Sessiz-Be Deng/Silent." The screening at Cannes marked Silent’s world premiere. Silent won production fund from Ministry of Culture of Republic of Turkey It won Akbank Short Film Competition “Best Film Prize” in Turkey, as well.


Mavi Boncuk |
Sessiz Fiction/ 14'21'' / HD / Color / 2011 
Directed/Written/Produced by: L. Rezan Yeşilbaş;  Cinematography by: Türksoy Gölebeyi;  Edited by: Buğra Dedeoğlu, L. Rezan Yeşilbaş; Sound: Furkan Atlı;  Cast: Belçim Bilgin, Cem Bender 












SYNOPSIS 


The year is 1984. Zeynep, who lives in Diyarbakır with her three children, wants to visit her husband in prison. Zeynep is only able to speak her mother tongue ‘Kurdish’; however, only the Turkish language is allowed to be spoken in prison, so she’s unable to utter a word there. On the other hand, she wants to bring a new pair of shoes to her husband but it’s forbidden to bring anything to prisoners from outside… 


Directors Comment
The film takes place in Diyarbakır in 1984, it is about a young woman who wants to visit her husband in prison. Yesilbas says about the film: “The prison of Diyarbakır, the setting of the story, is like the symbol of the torture experienced in the prisons in Turkey afer the coup d’etat of 1980. However, in this story, I did not choose to tell the things that took place in the prison, or the political prisoners or the torture, or the political fight. Instead, I turned my camera to the little stories of the “silent” women outside the prison, who could not speak another language than Kurdish, which was forbidden in the prisons of that era.” 


Biography 
Born in 1977, he graduated from the Cinema-TV department of Marmara University in 2008. His short film “Hüküm” ( Judgement) was the first film of his “ Trilogy of Women”. Hukum has been screened in many national and international film festivals. He shot “Sessiz/Be Deng” (Silent) in 2011 which is the second film of the trilogy. He has also written the script of the third film of the trilogy. L.Rezan Yeşilbaş also works as the assistant of Turkish director Zeki Demirkubuz since 2008. 
E-Mail: rezanyesilbas@gmail.com


Filmography 
2012 YERALTI (Underground) Zeki Demirkubuz  Feature 
as First Assistant Director 

2011 Sessiz / Be Deng Short Film (feature) 14'21'' 2008 
as Director Scriptwriter 

2011BABAMIN SESİ (VOICE OF MY FATHER) Orhan Eskiköy/ Zeynel Doğan Feature 
as Executive Producer 
2010 UNUTMA BENİ İSTANBUL (DON’T FORGET ME İSTANBUL) Multiple directors  Feature 
as Executive Producer 
2008KISKANMAK (ENVY) Zeki Demirkubuz Kara Film Feature 
as Executive Producer 
2008 HÜKÜM (THE JUDGEMENT) Short Film (feature) 35m 2008 
as Director Scriptwriter 


Contact L.REZAN YESILBAS - ikbaliye mah. zeamet sok. gul apt. d.2 no26 acibadem kadikoy Turquie - T : +90 555 300 0300 Press: Beyza Karayel +90 538 519 98 99 rezanyesilbas@gmail.com www.rezanyesilbas.com

New Turkish Cinema in Warsaw

New Turkish Cinema in Warsaw, 
24 - May 30, 2012
On 24-30 May 2012 in Warsaw, will be organized by the Society for Culture and Arts Magic Lantern [1].


In addition to presenting examples of award-winning New Turkish Cinema,  a Film Market will be held, where leading representatives of the Polish film industry will be able to meet with Turkish artists.


Mavi Boncuk |

In Cinema Muranów Polish film lovers will have the opportunity to watch the following films: "Love in a different language"( Baska Dilde Ask ), "The tragic history of Celal Tan and his family" (Celal Tan ve Ailesinin Aşırı Acıklı Hikayesi ), "What is left" ( Geriye Kalan ),"Jealousy" ( Kıskanmak ), "Cosmos" ( Cosmos ), "Night of Silence" (Lal Gece ), "Pomegranate" ( Nar ), " dot " ( nokta ), "Another prayer"( Uzak İhtimal ) and "Ekotopia" ( Entelköy Efeköy'e Kars ) .


The Turkish Film Week in Warsaw will host the: Reis Celik, Director , " Night of Silence " ( Lal Gece )  , actress Lale Mansur of  "Love in a different language" ( Baska Dilde Ask ) , Zeki Demirkubuz, director of " Jealousy " (Kıskanmak ) znd actor Serhat Tutumluer the producer of the film "Ekotopia" (Entelköy Efeköy'e Kars) Muharram Gülmez and producer of "pomegranate" (Nar) Turker Korkmaz . Turker Korkmaz will also be a guest of the Film Market.


[1] The Magic Lantern Culture and Arts Association 
Society for Culture and Arts Magic Lantern Büyülü Fener Kultur Sanat Dernegi (BFKS) led by Irfan Demirkol was founded in the spirit of the idea of "globality" of art and the fact that it is "common language" for the world. The organization brings together people looking at the world differently, for many years creating and operating in different fields of art such as in literature, photography and cinema. The Society organizes seminars and cultural and artistic events, and promotes art and culture of Turkey both at home and abroad. The works are supervised by the Society headquarters in Ankara.

Polluting Paradise: Cannes Review

Environmental doc is explicitly much more a campaigning tool than any kind of objective reportage.


Prolific Turkish-German auteur Fatih Akin aims to raise a stink with Polluting Paradise, a heartfelt documentary chronicling the environmental mismanagement blighting his grandparents' home village. 


Co-produced by a German TV channel, this is informative, ire-stoking but formally conventional small-screen fare whose only theatrical prospects are domestic, where Akin's ensemble comedy Soul Kitchen was 2009's second-biggest home-grown hit. Exposure abroad via eco-themed festivals and networks will nevertheless flow from an Out of Competition premiere at Cannes, where Akin's 2007 The Edge of Heaven took Best Screenplay.
Akin is quite unusual among major European film-makers in that he's harvested such major awards -- including Berlinale's Golden Bear for Head-On -- and critical praise as well as significant box-office success. An occasional documentarian, whose non-fiction movies tend to spring from his features, he now uses his status as a bully-pulpit to help raise awareness of a specific issue unfolding over the last half-decade on the Black Sea coast.
PHOTOS: Cannes 2012: Opening Night Gala
Polluting Paradise (Müll im Garten Eden), filmed over the last five years since Akin came to the area to shoot parts of Edge of Heaven, is thus explicitly much more a campaigning tool than any kind of objective reportage. It's evident that Akin is firmly on the side of the villagers in Çamburnu, a picturesque settlement located beneath lush tea-growing slopes. In 2007 a former copper-mine a couple of miles uphill was turned into an enormous landfill for the entire Trabzon province's trash - amid much local protest. The opposition has remained vociferous over the years -- thanks partly to the powerful stench emitted by the supposedly "odorless" garbage and, even more economically damaging, the deleterious effect on streams and the water-table.
Often working in collaboration with local-historian Bünyamin Seyrekbasan, whose photographs and video-recordings comprise an exhaustive and invaluable archive of the case, Akin sympathetically catalogues the complaints of numerous residents. Crucially, Akin and his collaborators obtain great access to the site and its surroundings, frequently happening to be in the right place at exactly the right time. They can thus capture the often-fraught encounters between the locals and the hapless functionaries tasked with operating and maintaining this deeply unpopular facility -- images of which are often given a sinister cast by the thriller-type stylizations of Alexander Hacke's over-used score.
The village's mayor is also a frequent on-camera presence, having pluckily spearheaded resistance to a scheme devised and implemented by the seldom-seen officials of the regional and national government. Mouthpiece for the latter is the plant's blandly reassuring manager ("the earth will sort it out") - but Polluting Paradise never quite manages to point a steady finger of blame at any one individual or department, and there's no indication that Akin tried to contact higher-up decision-makers.
Then again, a confrontational, attention-hogging Michael Moore approach clearly isn't his style -- as well as an amplification of grievances, Polluting Paradise is often a lyrical tribute to places and people with whom the Hamburg-raised director evidently feels a strong affinity. Akin's own family left Çamburnu long ago, of course -- and the village's population has been quickly dwindling as young people seek better opportunities and less smelly surroundings. Their relocation to Turkey's major cities -- whose own infrastructure is thus placed under extra stress - is symptomatic of a planet-wide flight from the rural to the urban. And it's sobering to reflect that there are probably hundreds of Çamburnus all around the world, small-scale eco-disasters proceeding far the purviews of world cinema's beady eyes.
Venue: Cannes Film Festival (Out of Competition - Special Screenings), May. 18, 2012.
Production company: Corazón International, in coproduction with NDR and Dorje Film
Director / Screenwriter: Fatih Akin
Producers: Fatih Akin, Klaus Maeck, Alberto Fanni, Flaminio Zadra, Paolo Colombo
Directors of photography: Bünyamin Seyrekbasan, Hervé Dieu
Music: Alexander Hacke
Editor: Andrew Bird
Sales Agent: The Match Factory, Cologne
No rating, 97 minutes.

Tribeca 2912 | Beyond the Hill

Beyond the Hill

Release Year: 2012

Runtime: 94 Minutes Directed by: Emin Alper

SYNOPSIS

In the quiet foothills of Turkey, Faik lives an isolated existence. When his second son brings his boys for a visit, Faik takes the opportunity to pontificate about the law of the land, as he sees it. He shares one unsolicited thought after the next, most particularly focusing on the elusive nomads whom he suspects have been trespassing on his property. The day and night wear on, and each member of the clan takes his turn entrusting the film's audience with his own dark secret.


In his feature debut, Emin Alper demonstrates a level of skill and subtlety in execution that earns him the distinction of a talent to watch. His use of space and setting creates a strikingly ominous narrative out of the simplicity of topography and facial expression. These landscapes—whether Faik's hills or a twisting grimace in close-up—become the driving dramatic forces within the story. Masterfully evoking tension through isolation, landscape, and unspoken conflict, Alper conveys that what lies beyond the hill may be far less damaging than what is within your walls.

--Ashley Havey

Young Turkish Cinema | 2009 Rotterdam Booklet

Young Turkish Cinema | 2009 Rotterdam Booklet


Download PDF

31. Istanbul IFF | National Competition Films

The programme of the 31st Istanbul Film Festival was announced on Wednesday, 7 March at the press conference held in İKSV Salon. Speakers during the press conference were İKSV Chairman of Board of Directors Bülent Eczacıbaşı, Akbank General Manager Hakan Binbaşıgil and Assistant Director of the Istanbul Film Festival Kerem Ayan.


The festival programme presents a rich content to cinephiles as always. The festival will meet the audience this year with a wide spectrum selections expanding new feature movies of 2011 and 2012, unforgetable classic movies, and masterpieces of master directors, movies having world premieres in Sundance in January and in Berlin in February, National Golden Tulip, International Golden Tulip and FACE Human Rights Competitions, documentaries, and children movies. “Cinema and Music” section planned for the 40th year of İKSV as well as new sections like “Filming Revolution”, “What’s Happening in Greece?” and “A Chinese Film Tradition: WuXia”, “Within the Family” and 15-hour-long special view of Mark Cousins’s The Story of Film: An Odyssey stand out in the festival. The Special Prize of the Jury, which was supported with a monetary award for the first time in 2011, will come to be distributed by Efes this year. Among the films partaking in the Golden Tulip National Competition, the director of the film to win the Special Jury Prize in the memory of Onat Kutlar, will be awarded 30,000 US Dollars by Efes to be used in his/her next film.  



This year, the Golden Tulip International Competition Jury will be led by renowned director Nuri Bilge Ceylan, who lately won the Special Jury Prize in Cannes Film Festival with his latest film Once Upon A Time in Anatolia. In addition to the Golden Tulip as the Grand Prize of the festival, the jury will also present a director the Special Prize of the Jury for exceptional achievement. The International Competition will be supported by a total of 25,000 Euro monetary prizes to be given by the Eczacıbaşı Group in the memory of Şakir Eczacıbaşı. Of this total amount, 10,000 Euros will be given to the Turkish distributor of the film to earn the Golden Tulip Best Film award.


NATIONAL COMPETITION


Meanwhile, the Golden Tulip National Competition Jury will be headed by poet and writer Murathan Mungan, whose several works have been adapted to theater. Mungan was also the screenwriter of Dağınık Yatak / An Untidy Bed by Atıf Yılmaz, considered a cult film by many. Lead by Mungan, the jury will hand out nine awards including the Best Turkish Film, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Actor, Best Screenplay, Best Director of Photography, Best Music, Best Editing, and Special Prize of the Jury.


The film to be selected as the Best Turkish Film will be awarded 150,000 TL, and the Best Director will be awarded 50,000 TL. The Best Actress and Best Actor will be awarded 10,000 TL each.



31.  Istanbul IFF | National Competition Films 
March 31-April 15, 2012


(World Premiers) 
Ben Uçtum, Sen Kaldın / Mizgin Müjde Arslan
Ana Dilim Nerede? / Veli Kahraman
Şimdiki Zaman / Belmin Söylemez
Ferahfeza / Elif Refiğ


(National Premiers) 
Tepenin Ardı / Emin Alper 
Lal Gece / Reis Çelik
Babamın Sesi / Orhan Eskiköy & Zeynel Doğan


and in competition


İz-Rêç / M. Tayfur Aydın   
Can / Raşit Çelikezer 
Yeraltı / Zeki Demirkubuz 
Nar / Ümit Ünal 

February 15, 2012, 6:00 AM

In Istanbul, a Film Festival Is Heavy on Politics

By SUSANNE FOWLER

Photo courtesy !f FestivalThe actor Kerem Can in the role of Can Ozturk in the Turkish film “Zenne Dancer.

¶¶The !f Istanbul International Independent Film Festival opens on Thursday with several movies that touch on controversial issues. It will screen more than 80 movies for an estimated 55,000 viewers in Istanbul, and many of the films examine matters like politics and the environment, at viewings occasionally hosted by stars.

Serra Ciliv, the festival director, said that though there had been no Arab Spring in Turkey, she included two films  on protest movements within the country: “Against the Flow,” a student-made film on efforts to block dam-building in the Black Sea region, and “Playing House,” directed by Bingol Elmas, about child brides.

¶One film that does focus on the Arab Spring is the three-part Egyptian documentary “Tahrir 2011’’ by Ayten Amin, Tamer Ezzat and Amr Salama. It begins with the 18-day protest in the Cairo square, followed by interviews with President Mubarak’s security forces, and ends with a section on “how those in power were manipulating, or thought they were manipulating, the people,” Ms. Ciliv said.

¶A screening of a film focusing on homophobia gets an injection of star power. Rupert Everett will host a screening of the Turkish film “Zenne Dancer,” a feature inspired by the story of Ahmet Yildiz, whose father is charged with murder in what has been labeled as the first gay honor killing in Turkey.

Turks of Berlinale 2012

Download PDF pages from Berlinale Book


Mavi Boncuk | Turks of Berlinale 2012
http://www.box.com/s/cx4aoybkj6a58epi0h0q

Pandora's Box | The World Cinema Fund

The World Cinema Fund has an annual budget of approximately 400,000 EUR and supports exclusively the production and distribution of feature films and feature-length documentaries. The support is focused on the following regions: Latin America, Central America, the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, Southeast Asia and the Caucasus.

Please note: 
You can find detailed information, downloads of the guidelines, forms and more on the pageGuidelines, Forms & Deadlines as well as on the FAQ – Frequently Asked Questions page.

Pandora's Box by Yesim Ustaoglu, Turkey (German Partner: The Match Factory): 
Toronto International Film festival 2008, Visions
Golden Shell for Best Film, San Sebastián Film Festival 2008

2012 Sundance | Special Jury Prize- "Can"

Sundance Award : Special Jury Prize, artistic vision - "Can" 2012 Sundance Film Festival, the top gathering for independent movies made outside of Hollywood's major studios.


Turkish Cinema Newsletter Link

Sundance 2012 | Can by Raşit Çelikezer

Loving Istanbul couple Ayşe and Cemal need only a child to complete their life together, but they cannot conceive. To salvage Cemal’s pride, they resort to illegal means to procure a baby. This wild grab at a more perfect life proves their undoing, leading the couple to spiral toward separate futures. The couple's estrangement is intertwined with the film’s parallel narrative, in which a distant and neglectful single mom is raising her little boy, Can.


Director/screenwriter Raşit Çelikezer conjures up a compelling tale about family, pride, and what we risk when we fail to value what we have. The veteran Turkish cast, including Selen Uçer (Ayşe) and Serdar Orçin (Cemal), allows our understanding of each character to evolve throughout the story. Can honors the tradition ofYeşilçam—shorthand for the golden age of Turkish cinema. As such,Can infuses its traditional premise with an inventive storytelling structure and a fresh take on family sorrows as old as time.
- H.Z.


DIRECTOR Raşit Çelikezer SCREENWRITER Raşit Çelikezer Turkey, 2011, 106 min, color, Turkish with English subtitlesPRODUCER Raşit Çelikezer COPRODUCERS Burak Akidil, Umman KüçükyılmazCINEMATOGRAPHER Ali Özel EDITOR Ahmet Can Cakirca ART DIRECTOR Ayşen Gürevin Karaytuğ MUSIC Tamer Ciray CAST Selen Uçer, Serdar Orçin, Berkan Demirbag, Erkan Avci 


BIO: Raşit Çelikezer was born in Izmir, Turkey. He holds a degree in cinema and television from Dokuz Eylül University. Çelikezer's short films, including Memories of an Ordinary Day (1996), Cocoon (1994), and Duet (1993), have screened at numerous film festivals. He has directed more than 300 episodes of 12 different series for Turkish television. His first feature, 2008's Three Apples Fell from the Sky (Gökten 3 Elma Düştü), won eight festival awards. Çelikezer's plays have been staged across Turkey and translated widely.

CONTACT: Rasit Celikezer 
rasitcelikezer@gmail.com 

PASSION CINÉMA 2011 | Turkish Films

PASSION CINÉMA et JOURNÉE MONTAGNES   03-08 October 2011 Ajaccio, Corsica Mommo

Atalay Tasdiken. 1h34. Turquie. Produit en 2009. Drame Avec Elif Bülbül, Mehmet Bülbül, Mete Dönmezer, MustafaUzunyılmaz Synopsis :                             Le film traite du lien extrêmement fort entre un frère et une sœur, Ahmet et Ayse, dont la mère vient de mourir. Leur père se remarie à une autre femme qui ne veut pas d’eux et qui entraîne ce dernier à les délaisser et à finalement les confier à leur grand-père handicapé. Âgé de seulement neuf ans, Ahmet doit donc assumer les rôles de père et de mère pour sa petite sœur. Est-ce que leur solidarité et leur soutien mutuel leur suffira pour rester ensemble ? Pour son premier long métrage, s’inscrivant dans un cinéma réaliste, le réalisateur a choisi de mettre en scène une histoire qui s’est réellement déroulée dans un village d’Anatolie proche de sa campagne natale. Une histoire qui dénonce l’état de pauvreté du monde rural où les adultes n’ont quelquefois pas d’autre choix que d’envoyer leurs enfants travailler chez les nantis d’Istanbul. Atalay Tasdiken réussit à brosser à la fois une peinture très naturaliste d’un village turc contemporain et le portrait de deux enfants, dont la relation de protection et d’attention entre le frère et la sœur… Il était une fois en Anatolie

Grand Prix. Festival de Cannes 2011 Nuri Bilge Ceylan. 2h30. Turquie. Novembre 2011. Drame Avec Yılmaz Erdogan, Taner Birsel, Ahmet Mümtaz Taylan Synopsis :                             La vie dans une petite ville s’apparente à un voyage au milieu des steppes : l’impression que quelque chose « de nouveau et de différent » va surgir derrière chaque colline, mais toujours les mêmes routes monotones, effilées, qui disparaissent ou persistent, infailliblement similaires... Ce grand réalisateur turc, auteur des Climats et des Trois singes, prouve une fois encore avec ce film qu'il est un immense cinéaste. L’histoire nous emmène sur les routes et dans les villages de l'Anatolie, région centrale de la Turquie composée de steppes désolées et monotones. On y suit les tribulations d'un procureur, un médecin légiste, une escouade de policiers et deux prisonniers à la recherche du cadavre que ces derniers ont enterré. Film passionnant ! Une émotion aussi intense qu'inattendue. Le tout superbement photographié et mis en scène… Hair

Tayfun Pirselimoglu. 2h00. Grèce/Turquie. Produit en 2010. Drame

Avec Ruhi Sari, Mehmet Avcı, Nurcan Eren

               

Synopsis :            

               

Dans un quartier délabré d’Istanbul Hamdi, un vendeur de perruques, se sent désespérément seul, passant ses jours et ses nuits dans sa boutique, qui est aussi son domicile. Malgré le peu de temps qui lui reste à vivre, ce fumeur invétéré atteint d’un cancer, continue à enchaîner les cigarettes en fixant une une prostituée vêtue de rouge qui fait le trottoir de l’autre côté de la rue. Convaincu qu’il rapetisse, Hamdi se mesure tous les jours. Il n’espère plus rien avant sa mort, sauf peut-être partir très loin…

Hamburg IFF | Once Upon a Time in Anatolia

Once Upon a Time in Anatolia 
Turkey, Bosnia and Herzegovina 2011 | 157 min | OV with english and german s.t. | Colour |




n this long, slow, hypnotic film about a bunch of men looking for a body in the endless eerie Anatolian landscape, Turkey's star director Nuri Bilge Ceylan explores the human condition through side glances and offhand remarks, caring very little about time, especially the viewer’s time, in eventless sequences without conventional action. At the same time, for those willing to take the plunge, it is a deep and haunting work that lingers in the memory.


This event is  presented in cooperation with Freundeskreis Filmfest Hamburg e.V.
Director: Nuri Bilge Ceylan


Screenplay: Nuri Bilge Ceylan Ebru Ceylan Ercan Kesal


Cast: Muhammet Uzuner Yılmaz Erdoğan Taner Birsel Ahmet Mümtaz Taylan Fırat Tanış Ercan Kesal


Producer: Zeynep Özbatur Atakan Mirsad Purivatra Eda Arikan Ibrahim Sahin Müge Kolat Murat Akdi


Orig. Titel: Bir zamanlar Anadolu'da
Section: Agenda 11
Original language: Turkish
Filmtype: Fiction Feature
DoP: Gökhan Tiryaki
Editor: Bora Gökşingöl, Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Format: 35 mm
World Sales: Zeynofilm | Cihangir Caddesi Derya Palas apt. 34/' Beyoglu-Cihangir | 34433 Istanbul | Turkey | Email: sezgiu@gmail.com
Production Company: Zeyno Film; Prod2006; Turkish Radio & Television (TRT); Imaj; Fida Film; NBC FilmWebsite: http://www.nbcfilm.com/anatolia

Hamburg IFF | Press

Press
Turkey 2010 | 100 min | OV with english and german s.t. | Colour |

In the first half of the 1990’s, on those days when intense skirmish between the Kurdish guerillas and the Turkish government took place, a handful of young journalists were struggling to proclaim the ongoing violations of human rights to the world. In those days of increasing pressure, the office staff fights both to survive and to reveal the facts. Journalism is no longer a profession, but a a matter of life or death for them.

This event is presented in cooperation with Freundeskreis Filmfest Hamburg e.V.

Director: Sedat Yilmaz

Screenplay: Sedat Yilmaz

Cast: Aram Dildar Engin Emre Değer Kadim Yaşar Sezgin Cengiz

Producer: Sedat Yilmaz

Orig. Titel: Press
Section: Agenda 11
Original language: Turkish
Filmtype: Fiction Feature
DoP: Demir Gökdemir
Set Designer: Nevin Do?an
Editor: Sedat Yilmaz
Format: 35 mm

Production Company: Karincalar Film Yapim | Firuzaga Mah. Süngü Sok. Süngü Apt. No: 1/2 | Cihangir-Istanbul | Turkey | Email: sedat@karincalaryapim.com

Website: www.pressfilm.net

Sedat Yilmaz, (*1972) works as a director and producer for cinema an TV. With his own production company Karincalar, he creates commercials and educational films. He also gives workshops in editing.

Hamburg IFF 2011 | Ecumenopolis: City Without Limits

Ecumenopolis: City Without Limits
Turkey, Germany 2011 | 93 min | OV with german s.t. | Colour |


Istanbul wants to play in the big leagues. Last year it was the European City of Culture. It has its heart set on winning the 2020 Olympic bid. And the government wants it to be the financial centre of the region. At fifteen million, its population is twice the size of London’s, and looks set to double by 2030. But the lack of planning regulations means that expansion has come without adequate environmental or safety precautions. As one interviewee warns, for Istanbul the future means chaos.


Director: İmre Azem


Screenplay: İmre Azem


Producer: Gaye Günay Stephan Anspichler


Orig. Titel: Ekümenopolis: Ucu Olmayan Şehir
Section: Three Colours Green
Original language: English/Turkish
Filmtype: Documentary Feature
Music: Lari Dilmen, Nilüfer Ormanli
DoP: Hakan Yonat, ?enol Altun, İmre Azem
Editor: Eray Ilhan, Arzu Volkan
Format: HDCam


World Sales: Studio Hamburg Distribution & Marketing GmbH | Jenfelder Allee 80 | 22039 Hamburg | Germany | Phone: +49 40 6688-5355 | Email: distribution@studio-hamburg.de
Production Company: York Street Productions International Ltd.


Website: www.ekumenopolis.net

Imre Azem (*1975) studied political sciences and French literature among other things in Moscow, New Orleans and Paris. For his feature debut Ecumenopolis he moved back to his native Istanbul.

London 2011 | Once Upon a Time in Anatolia

Ceylan’s most audacious film yet is a measured, masterly account of a police investigation, Chekhovian in its piercing insights, subtle wit and thematic richness. 

Alongside The Tree of Life, Ceylan's Grand Prix-winner was widely regarded as the most rewardingly audacious film in Cannes this year. Its lithe if meticulously constructed story, starting at dusk and ending around the middle of the next day, follows the search by police, prosecutors, a doctor and the alleged culprit for the body of a man buried in the Anatolian steppes (but where exactly?) after a brawl. From this slow yet wholly engrossing account of a rambling, shambling investigation that steadily shifts focus from a group of mostly garrulous characters to the aforementioned doctor, Ceylan fashions a richly quizzical meditation on a range of interwoven themes: the concerns and manners of provincial life; our relationship with the places we inhabit; the balancing of ethics and pragmatism; our need to hold on to the banalities of life when faced with misfortune, absurdity and death. And more; even by his own remarkable standards, this is hugely impressive. The piercing insights and dry wit, the feel for the subtle rhythms of human interaction, the beautiful, superbly expressive Scope images confirm Ceylan's status as a master of cinema.


Geoff Andrew


Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
Running time 157 min 
Year 2011
Directed by: Nuri Bilge Ceylan

Country: Turkey-Bosnia-Herzegovina 
Writer: Ercan Kesal, Ebru Ceylan, Nuri Bilge Ceylan 
Cast: Muhammet Uzuner, Yilmaz Erdogan, Taner Birsel, Firat Tanis 
Distributor: New Wave Films 

London IFF 2011 | Once Upon a Time in Anatolia

Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (Oct 17)

Mon 17

| 20:30

| Vue Screen 7

FULLY BOOKED


It's a police procedural by the Turkish film-maker Nuri Bilge Ceylan, which means that it is long and deliberate and pruned of anything resembling CSI-style thrills. But stay with it. Follow in the footsteps of Ceylan's protagonists (the cops, doctor, prosecutor and suspects) as they hunt a body in the barrens and Once Upon a Time in Anatolia casts an extraordinary spell. It's arguably the director's most muscular, most fully realised film to date, and deservedly won the grand prix at the 2011 Cannes film festival (a prize it shared with the Dardennes' similarly fine The Kid With a Bike, which also screens at this year's LFF).

London Film Festival 2011 | Law of the Border

Mavi Boncuk |


London Film Festival 2011

Law of the Border 


 Tue 25 | 18:30 | NFT3


Powerful and radical smuggling drama from Turkey, starring the great Yilmaz Güney, rescued and restored by Martin Scorsese's World Cinema Foundation. The happy outcome of another rescue mission by Martin Scorsese's World Cinema Foundation, created to help archives in developing countries preserve their cinema heritage, Law of the Border marked the beginning of Turkey's 'New Cinema' movement, focusing on the country's profound social problems. Brought to light by WCF advisory board member Fatih Akin and restored by L'Immagine Ritrovata laboratory in Bologna from the wreckage of a single positive print which survived the Turkish military coup d'état in 1980, the film highlights the deprivations of daily life in South-East Turkey – lack of education, no agriculture, unemployment – and their solution: smuggling. Akad's film has the stylistic qualities of an epic Western – '...a work of great visual and dramatic force, of terrific purity and ferocity,' as Kent Jones, executive director of the WCF, puts it – and was a positive influence on the film's scriptwriter and star, Yilmaz Güney, about to make his own directing debut and become Turkey's best-known radical filmmaker and thorn in the government's side, condemned to a life of political imprisonment and eventual exile in Switzerland.


Clyde Jeavons


Law of the Border
Country: Turkey:  Running time: 74min Year :1966
Director: Ömer Lüfti Akad:  Writer: Ömer Lüfti Akad, Yilmaz Güney
Cast: Yilmaz Güney, Pervin Par, Hikmet Olgun, Erol Tas, Tuncel Kurtiz:

TIFF 2011 | When We Leave

When We Leave
Feo Aladag
Country: Turkey/Germany
Year: 2010
Runtime: 119 min minutes
Screens as part of Human Rights Watch


Based on a highly publicized honour killing in Berlin in 2005, When We Leave stars Sibel Kekilli as Umay, a young Turkish Muslim woman who courageously decides to leave her abusive husband in Istanbul and join her family in Germany with her young son. Her reunion with her parents and siblings soon reveals that cultural ties are strong and her family’s love is not unconditional. Umay’s struggle for independence in a patriarchal society bound by tradition and pride makes for a passionately dramatic film that provocatively explores issues of family, community values and personal freedom.


See Also

Turkish Cinema Newsletter: Audience Award for Feo Aladag's Die ...

Feb 01, 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 ...

http://turkfilm.blogspot.com/

When We Leave (Die Fremde) by Feo Aladag

Jan 22, 2010

Feo Aladag was born in 1972 in Vienna. She began her career as an actress, completing her training in London and Vienna from 1990-1995. While studying Acting she completed a Master in Psychology and Journalism, continuing on to receive ...

http://turkfilm.blogspot.com/

Europe's LUX prize goes to When We Leave

Nov 24, 2010

The European Parliament's president Jerzy Buzek presented the award to Aladağ at a special ceremony today (24 Nov). She is the first female director to be shortlisted since the award began in 2007. The award carries a cash prize of ...

http://turkfilm.blogspot.com/

65 countries vie for 2010 Foreign Language Film Oscar®

Oct 16, 2010

Germany, “When We Leave,” Feo Aladag, director; Greece, “Dogtooth,” Yorgos Lanthimos, director; Greenland, “Nuummioq,” Otto Rosing and Torben Bech, directors; Hong Kong, “Echoes of the Rainbow,” Alex Law, director; ...

http://turkfilm.blogspot.com/

TIFF 2011 | Don't Go

Pinky - Don't Go from Pinky on Vimeo.



Don't Go
Turgut Akacik
Country: Turkey
Year: 2010
Runtime:  (3’ 51”)
Ages: 7-11
A pouncing cat pursues its imaginary disco-dancing friend in this lively and original music video.
produced by Anima - Istanbul. Annecy 2010 Animation Film Festival Special Distinction Award and Junior Jury Award for a short film winner. By Anima istanbul


Character Design: Nermin Er
Art Director: Melis Şeylan
Story: Turgut Akaçık
Production: Oya Aytimur
Graphic Design: Melis Şeylan
Animation: Turgut Akaçık
Director of Photography: Turgut Akaçık
Compositing: Koray Güzey, İlhan Poyraz
TD: Soner Ünlü
Modeling: Özgül Gürbüz
Music: "Don't Go" - Yazoo, "Invisible" - Fisher Spooner
Sound Design: Ozan Kurtulus
Editing: Turgut Akaçık
Title Sequence Animation: Ahmet Tabak
anima.gen.tr
Pinky - Don't Go (Teaser)