WWII life-saving ship star of documentary:

WWII life-saving ship star of documentary:

ANK - Turkish Daily News

Filmmaker and author Erhan Cerrahoğlu has been working on a documentary about a ship that carried humanitarian supplies from Turkey to Greece during World War II.

The ship, Kurtuluş, sunk on its fifth trip to Greece, on Feb. 20, 1942, due to a storm.

The documentary notes that Turkey was the only country that helped Greece during the period known as the “Great Hunger,” when estimates say 70,000 people died, and iincludes interviews with Greek academics and citizens who lived through the period.

Cerrahoğlu said he was impressed about what they told him about the ship: “They were talking about a Turkish ship that sunk while taking much-needed supplies to Greece. As I was preparing it, I was shocked. Why didn't anyone know about this?”

He said as he investigated the story, he realized most of the relevant archives were destroyed and that not a single record of what happened existed even in the records of the Turkish Red Crescent, which supplied the aid.

During his trip to Athens, Cerrahoğlu realized that all those who lived through World War II remembered the Kurtuluş. “Everyone I talked to ended their interview by saying how nonsensical the tension between Turkey and Greece is. Unfortunately, not a single Turkish witness survives.”

Speaking for the documentary, Greek historian Georgeos Margaritis said: “Kurtuluş, until February 1942, was the symbol of hope for Greeks. After it sank, more ships came, but all of them were known as Kurtuluş to us. People used to say, ‘We are hungry, but Kurtuluş will come tomorrow'.”

The documentary is sponsored by Greece's Olympic Airways.

TORONTO '06 DISCOVERY INTERVIEW: Ozer Kiziltan

A scene from Ozer Kiziltan' s "Takva - A Man's Fear of God." Photo courtesy of the Toronto International Film Festival

TORONTO '06 DISCOVERY INTERVIEW: Ozer Kiziltan: "Unfortunately, war and violence affected me more than other filmmakers or films."

by indieWIRE (September 13, 2006)

Every day through the end of the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival, indieWIRE will be publishing interviews with filmmakers in the Discovery section of the festival, which TIFF describes as "provocative feature films by new and emerging directors."
Nineteen filmmakers were given the opportunity to participate in an e-mail interview, and each was sent the same questions. Director Ozer Kiziltan is at Toronto with his feature film, "Takva - A Man's Fear of God" is about a single middle-aged Turkish man who has a crisis of faith.
How old are you? Where did you grow up? Where do you live now?
I was born in Istanbul in 1963 and I am still living in this beautiful city.
What were the circumstances that lead you to become a filmmaker?
While I was in my last semester studying Law at Istanbul University, suddenly I thought that I would be a great film director and I left the Law Department and I began studying Cinema & TV. My degree ended up coming from that department. I live in a part of the world where lot of stories are waiting to be heard and communicated to others. I thought the best way to tell these beautiful stories was through movies and I still think so. "Takva" is my first feature film, but I directed several TV series for Turkish television and I still do. I associated in 1997 with a few filmmaker friends in a production company, Yeni Sinemacular (New Filmmakers). So far, I have worked in different positions in four feature films made by Yeni Sinemacular. "Takva" is our fifth film together. All the films we've made together have had acclaim in Turkey and also been shown in many international festivals and even won some awards. "Takva" is my turn as a director, and I am waiting impatiently for the reactions.
How/where did the initial idea for your film come from?
"Takva" is the most recent project of production company Yeni Sinemacular. While Onder Cakar wrote the script and the project was in development, everything was designed in accordance with my cinema language. I had been waiting for a long time to make a film as a director. "Takva"seemed to be the right project for me.

What were some of the biggest challenges you faced in either developing the project or making and securing distribution for the movie?
The main problem - not for myself, but for all the crew - was that our knowledge of Islamic culture and its actuality in Istanbul today was very weak. We had to do a lot of research work for a long time during the preparation.
How did you finance the film?
Yeni Sinemacular, together with Turkish-German director Fatih Akin's production company Corazon applied to many institutions, such as the Turkish Minister of Culture, Eurimages, Goethe Institute, etc. for financing and the film has been made with a very limited budget.
What are your biggest creative influences?
Unfortunately, war and violence -- Kosovo, Chechen wars, September 11 and the Philistine massacres - affected me more than other filmmakers or films. They still keep affecting me after finishing "Takva".
What is your definition of independent film?
I think what makes a film independent is hidden in its power to stay free from both the film's own budget issues and also from the cliches of the movie industry's financial interests. As long as filmmakers don't lose their freedom, the spirit of independent cinema will survive.
What are some of your favorite films?
"Potemkin," "Amadeus," "Mephisto," "Natural Born Killers".
How do you define success as a filmmaker? What are your personal goals as a filmmaker?
To continue making films, again and again.
Can you tell us a bit about your next projects?
Together with Yeni Sinemacular, we are trying to develop several projects - a project comparing love and war written by a Macedonian woman screenwriter, one on Armenian issues and racial problems. I don't know of any other projects about the issue of women and Islam in the "Takva" style. Who knows, maybe we will do that too. I guess "Takva" will determine our way.

Takva - A Man's Fear of God

Takva - A Man's Fear of God
(Takva)

Programme: VISIONS
Director: Özer Kiziltan
Country: Turkey/Germany
Year: 2006 | 97 minutes | Colour/35mm

Production Company : Yeni Sinemacilik
Foreign Sales Agent : The Match Factory

Executive Producer: Feridun Koc, Falk H. Nagel
Producer: Sevil Demirci Çakar, Önder Çakar, Fatih Akin, Klaus Maeck, Andreas Thiel
Screenplay: Önder Çakar
Cinematographer: Soykut Turan
Editor: Andrew Bird
Production Designer: Erol Tastan
Sound: Onur Yavuz
Music: Gökçe Akçelik
Principal Cast: Erkan Can, Güven Kiraç, Meray Ülgen, Duygu Sen, Salaettin Bilal

In Takva – A Man’s Fear of God, director Özer Kiziltan has tackled one of life’s most difficult questions and, in so doing, has created an extraordinary piece of cinema: if we base our lives on a belief in God, and then experience a crisis of faith, are we losing God or is God abandoning us because of our questioning?

Muharrem (Erkan Can) is a forty-five-year-old single man, living in one of the oldest residential districts in Istanbul, in the very house in which he was born. He works every day as the assistant to a sack trader, the same job he has held since he was eleven years old. The conservative and traditional behaviour of his late parents and of his community have led Muharrem to be an introvert, so his exceptionally simple life centres on his total devotion to the services and exercises of a religious sect. The core of Muharrem’s life is his bedrock belief in – and fear of – God.

It is this conscientiousness, honesty and discipline that leads the Sheikh of his convent (in the context of Islam, a religious complex for men) to appoint Muharrem as administrator of its holdings. As Muharrem has shown no interest in material things, surely he is the best one to collect the rents from their forty-three flats, thirty-five shops and seven pieces of land. Muharrem accepts the task with great humility and even some awe, especially when he is provided with a new suit, a beautiful pen, a car with a driver and a cell phone.

Inevitably, Muharrem begins to face ethical situations in the secular world for which his dedication to his religion has not prepared him. Soon, this man of faith loses his spiritual innocence by an act of his own, and his despair sends him spiralling into madness, perhaps never to return.

Takva – A Man’s Fear of God provides extraordinary riches to the viewer. Initially it offers a rarely-seen glimpse into the world of conservative Turkish Muslims, which has a beauty and hypnotic power entirely its own. Then we are drawn into Muharrem’s small universe with its very large questions. Cinematically stunning and skilfully made, the film tackles those important struggles that all too often go unexplored in a complex modern world.

- Jane Schoettle

Özer Kiziltan was born in Istanbul and studied law at the University of Istanbul. Before completing his degree, he left law school in order to study cinema and television at the Mimar Sinan University. He has written and directed several TV shows and award-winning short films, including Distress (90), Caution, Mice (90), Your Eyes Are the Last Passion Fire of Yesilçam (93) and The Last Birds Too Are Gone (94). Takva – A Man’s Fear of God (06) is his debut feature film.

Associated with European Film Promotion,
an initiative supported by the
European Union’s MEDIA Programme.

2 GENC KIZ by Kutlug Ataman

2 GENC KIZ Turkey
Focus on World Cinema
2005 / 35 mm / Colour / 107 min
Director : Kutlug Ataman
Script : Kutlug Ataman
Photography : Emre Erkmen
Editor : Zeynep Zilelioglu, Aziz Imamoglu, Lew Q
Cast : Hulya Avsar, Feride Cetin, Vildan Atasever
2006 WORLD FILM FESTIVAL MONTREAL

2 GIRLS
Two teenage girls hook up in contemporary Istanbul. Bubbly blonde Handan loves patrolling the shopping malls and has a love-hate relationship with her mom, Leman, who also likes expensive clothes. Although Leman is willing to turn tricks to raise Handan's college fees, she's otherwise hopeless with both men and money. Behiye, meanwhile, is an angry and defiant university student with little interest in education. She despises her conservative parents and her abusive older brother. When a mutual friend introduces Behiye to Handan they immediately hit it off, and despite the differences in their backgrounds they embark on an intense relationship and, with it, a secret plan to escape their dysfunctional families.

Kutlug Ataman
Born in Istanbul in 1961, Kutlug Ataman graduated in drama and film from the University of California in Los Angeles, in 1988. He worked for several years in Turkey and in Germany, then moved to London in 1999. His video installations have been displayed at museums in New York and across Europe. Selected filmography: Hansel and Gretel (1984), La Fuga (1988), THE SERPENT'S TALE (1993), LOLA AND BILIDIKID (1998), Women With Pigs (1999), Never My Soul (2000), and The 4 Seasons of Veronica Read (2002).

WITHIN REACH BY Phyllis Katrapani

WITHIN REACH Canada
Documentaries of the World
2006 / Video / Colour / 51 min
Director : Phyllis Katrapani
Script : Phyllis Katrapani
Photography : Phyllis Katrapani
Editor : Kara Blake, Louise Dugal
2006 WORLD FILM FESTIVAL, MONTREAL

What do we bring from our homeland that remains with us in the country where we are now citizens? What do we discard? What do we pass on? Language, memories, objects that bear witness to past lives and, often, to other cultures. What are the links between here and there, then and now, distance and proximity? An intimate journey in seven chapters, Within Reach explores, through recollections, conversations and experiences, the questions of intimacy in art and the documentary filmmaker's point of view.

Phyllis Katrapani
Born in Montreal in 1967, Phyllis Katrapani graduated in communication from the Université du Québec à Montréal. She studied as well at the FAMU film school in Prague and the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema at Concordia University in Montreal. Her first film, Still Life (1992), was made at FAMU as a graduation film. Among her subsequent works, Ithaka (1997) and HOME (2002) were shown at the Montreal World Film Festival as well as events worldwide.

Erju Ackman / Film Related Biography (2002)

Erju Ackman / Film Related Biography

Born 1950, Istanbul, Turkey
1967
Film Critic for Kadikoy'un Sesi,Istanbul, Turkey (local weekly)
1968-69
Film Critic for Yeni Istanbul, Istanbul, Turkey (National Daily)
1969-71
Editor for Movie Pages for HEY (national youth and music weekly )
1971-73
Short Films
1969-1974
Publications and research at ( Devlet Film Arsivi) National Film Archive, State Academy of Fine Arts, Istanbul
1972-74
Film Programming at National Film Archive, State Academy of Fine Arts, Istanbul
Golden Age of Danish Silent Cinema
German Silent Films
Fantastic Cinema
1987-1999
Director at Toronto Film Society
membership / publicity / programming
1988
May 21 1988 at University of Toronto, Innis College Town Hall
Programme Organized by E. Ackman
during CFFS / Canadian Federation of Film Societies AGM Film Preview Weekend
Ahh Belinda / Atif Yilmaz 1987
Forbidden Love / Aski Memnu / Halit Refig 1975
1988
The Best of Turkish Cinema / Toronto
Nov 19- 30, 1988
A Desperate Road / Umutsuz Yol /Omer Kavur 1985
White Bicyle /Beyaz Bisiklet / Nisan Akman 1987
Ahh Belinda / Atif Yilmaz 1987
Ipekce / Bilge Olgac 1986
Forbidden Love / Aski Memnu / Halit Refig 1975
Wrestler / Pehlivan / Zeki Okten 1985
Sultanahmed Hippodrome / Sultanahmet Meydani/(documentary short) / Nesli Colgecen
When Fogs Disappear / Sisler Kovulunca / (documentary short) / Suha Arin 1986

1989
New Turkish Cinema
January 11- March 9, 1989
Pasific Cinematheque, Vancouver, BC, Canada
Cinematheque Quebecoise, Montreal PQ
Canadian Film Institute, Ottawa Ontario, Canada
Waterloo University, Waterloo Ontario, Canada
A Desperate Road / Umutsuz Yol /Omer Kavur 1985
White Bicyle /Beyaz Bisiklet / Nisan Akman 1987
Ahh Belinda / Atif Yilmaz 1987
Ipekce / Bilge Olgac 1986
Forbidden Love / Aski Memnu / Halit Refig 1975
Wrestler / Pehlivan / Zeki Okten 1985
Sultanahmed Hippodrome / Sultanahmet Meydani/(documentary short) / Nesli Colgecen
When Fogs Disappear / Sisler Kovulunca / (documentary short) / Suha Arin 1986
1990-1997
Presented Turkish directors during Toronto International Film Festival
1990 Furuzan, Gulsun Karamustafa
1991 Omer kavur
1992 Nizamettin Aric
1997 Dervis Zaim
1999 Yesim Ustaoglu
1990
Programme Organized by E. Akman on behalf of Turkish Culture and Folklore Society
Turkish Film Festival, North York, Ontario, Canada
October 10-13, 1990 at Fairview Library Theatre, North York, Ontario, Canada
My Aunt / Teyzem/ Halit Refig
After Yesterday, Before Tomorrow/ Dunden Once Yarindan Sonra/ Nisan Akman
Summer is Over/ Yaz Bitti /Zeki Alasya
Any Woman/ Herhangi Bir Kadin / Serif Goren
1993
Animation Programme / Toronto Animated Image Society
1993 Japaneese Animation Programme/ Art Gallery of Ontario

1996
Czech Cinema and Literature/
Cinematheque Ontario
Pasific Cinematheque, Vancouver, BC, Canada
Canadian Film Institute, Ottawa Ontario, Canada
Waterloo University, Waterloo Ontario, Canada
1996
Jan 10- Feb 11, 1996 / New Turkish Cinema
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Canadian Film Institute, Ottawa Ontario, Canada
Waterloo University, Waterloo Ontario, Canada
Motherland Hotel/ Anayurt Oteli / Omer Kavur 1987
Daydreams of Miss Cazibe / Cazibe Hanimin Gunduz Dusleri /Irfan Tozum 1993
Walking on Fire / Ates Ustunde Yurumek/ Yavuz Ozkan 1991
Berlin in Berlin/ Sinan Cetin 1993
Two Women /Iki Kadin / Yavuz Ozkan 1992
Dream Travellers/ Dus Gezginleri / Atif Yilmaz 1992
Initiated a campaign for the installation of a Toronto Historical Board plaque
at the site of the first moving picture show on the occasion of the Centennial of Cinema


1995-1999
Interviews about Turkish Cinema / CIUT Toronto,
Interview about Turkish Cinema / CHIN Radio,November 1, 1997
Interviews about Turkish Cinema / Voice of America, Washington DC
Voice of America interview (in Turkish)


1999
May 1 -June 27, 1999 / New Turkish Cinema
Freer and Sackler Galeries, Washington DC
The Bandit / Eskiya / Yavuz Turgul 1966
Somersault in a Coffin / Tabutta Rovesata / Dervis Zaim 1966
Lobster Pot / Yengec Sepeti / Yavuz Ozkan 1994
Innocence / Masumiyet / Zeki Demirkubuz 1998
Journey on the Clock Hand / Akrebin Yolculugu / Omer Kavur 1997
Traces / Iz / Yesim Ustaoglu
A Boat Anchored in the Desert / Colde Yanliz bir Gemi / Basar Sabuncu 1993
The Town / Kasaba / Nuri Bilge Ceylan 1997
Cholera Street / Agir Roman / Mustafa Altioklar 1998
1999-2002
New Turkish Cinema Fall-Spring
6 Feature Films / University of Boston
A Boat Anchored in the Desert / Colde Yanliz bir Gemi / Basar Sabuncu 1993
Everything's Gonna be Great / Hersey Cok Guzel Olacak / Omer Vargi 1998
Mr. Muhsin / Muhsin Bey / Yavuz Turgul 1986
Somersault in a Coffin / Tabutta Rovasata / Dervis Zaim 1996
Cholera Street / Agir Roman / Mustafa Altioklar 1998
The Wound / Yara /
Presented Turkish films during Filmfest DC International Film Festival 2000
Harem Suare / Propaganda / Journey to Sun
Presented Turkish film during Filmfest DC International Film Festival 2001
Run For Money / Kac Para Kac / Reha Erdem 1999
Presented Turkish film during Filmfest DC International Film Festival 2002
Vizontele / Yilmaz Erdogan, Omer Faruk Sorak 2001

Latest Voice of America interview after FilmfestDC 2002 (in Turkish)

Organized TURKISH FILM FORUM
Friday June 8, 2001 at the Turkish Embassy for DC film community to seek advice on how to make Turkish Films available for public and discuss Turkish Film Programs in USA
Guest Curator NEW TURKISH CINEMA AT THE FREER AND SACKLER GALLERIES, September-October 2001
Run for Money / Kac Para Kac / Reha Erdem 1999
Third Page / Ucuncu Sayfa / Zeki Demirkubuz 1999
House of Angels / Melekler Evi/ Omer Kavur 2000
Double feature:
A Madonna in Laleli/ Laleli'de Bir Madonna / Kudret Sabanci 1998
On Board / Gemide/ Serdar Akar 1998
Balalayka / Ali Ozgenturk 2000
Clouds of May / Nuri Bilge Ceylan 2000

Copyright ©2001 Turkish Cinema Newsletter, Washington D.C.

M. K. Ataturk (1881- 1938) on Cinema

M. K. Ataturk (1881- 1938) Founder and First President of Turkish Republic
Sinema öyle bir kesiftir ki bir gün gelecek barutun, elektrigin ve kitalarin kesfinden çok, dünya uygarliginin görünüsünü degistirecegi görülecektir. Sinema dünyanin en uzak uçlarinda oturan insanlarin birbirlerini tanimalarini, sevmelerini saglayacaktir. Sinema, insanlar arasindaki görüs, görünüs farklarini silecek, insanlik ülküsünün gerçeklesmesine en büyük yardimi yapacaktir. Sinemaya layik oldugu önemi vermeliyiz

"A day will come when the invention of the cinema will seem to have changed the face of the world more than the invention of gun powder, electricity or the discovery of new continents. The cinema will make it possible for people living in the most remote comers of the earth to get to know and love one another. The cinema will remove differences of thought and outlook, and will be of great assistance in realising the ideals of humanity. It is essential that we treat the cinema with the importance it deserves." (1937)
English Translation by Billie Uluisik

"Un jour viendra où l'on verra que le cinéma aura bien plus changé la face du monde que la découverte de la poudre, de l'électricité ou de nouveaux continents. Le cinéma permettra aux hommes répartis aux quatre coins de la Terre de mieux se connaître et de s'apprécier. Le cinéma supprimera les différences de vue et d'opinion; il contribuera de façon primordiale à la réalisation des idéaux de l'humanité. Nous devons reconnaître au cinéma l'importance qu'il mérite."(1937)
French Translation by Maurice Asseo

"Der Tag wird kommen, wenn die Erfindung des Films das Antlitz der Welt wesentlicher veraendert zu haben scheint als die Erfindung des Schwarzpulvers, der Elektrizitaet oder der Entdeckung neuer Kontinente. Der Film ermoeglicht es, dass Menschen in den entfernesten Teilen der Welt sich kennenlernen und einander zugeneigt fuehlen koennen. Der Film wird die Unterschiede zwischen Gedanken und Gesichtspunkten ueberbruecken, und er wird einen grossen Beitrag leisten zur Erlangung der humnitaeren Ideale. Es ist daher wichtig, dass wir dem Film das Ansehen geben, welches er verdient." (1937)
German Translation by Dieter A. Thiemann

Sinema öyle bir kesiftir ki bir gün gelecek barutun, elektrigin ve kitalarin kesfinden çok, dünya uygarliginin görünüsünü degistirecegi görülecektir. Sinema dünyanin en uzak uçlarinda oturan insanlarin birbirlerini tanimalarini, sevmelerini saglayacaktir. Sinema, insanlar arasindaki görüs, görünüs farklarini silecek, insanlik ülküsünün gerçeklesmesine en büyük yardimi yapacaktir. Sinemaya layik oldugu önemi vermeliyiz

Reprinted from Turkish Cinema Newsletter Copyright ©1996 - 2003, Washington D.C.

Yeni sezonda 14 Türk filmi vizyona girecek

Yeni sezonda 14 Türk filmi vizyona girecek
Sinemaseverlerin başta Kurtlar Vadisi-Irak, Babam ve Oğlum ve Organize İşler filmlerine ilgi göstermesi yapımcıları da harekete geçirdi. Sektörde yerli film dağıtımının yüzde 43'lük bölümüne sahip olan Özen Film, yeni dönemde dağıtımını üstleneceği diğer filmleri de açıkladı. İşte eylülden itibaren gösterime girecek yeni Türk filmleri:

Cenneti Beklerken

Yönetmen: Derviş Zaim

Oyuncular: Serhat Tutumluer, Melisa Sözen

Eşek Adası

Yapımcı: Arzu-Fida

Eve Dönüş

Yönetmen:

Ömer Uğur

Oyuncular: Memet Ali Alabora, Sibel Kekilli

Çinliler Geliyor

Yönetmen: Zeki Ökten

Eve Giden Yol

Yönetmen: Semir Aslanyürek

Oyuncular: Erkan Petekkaya-Melisa Sözen

Hababam Sınıfı 4

Yönetmen: Ferdi Eğilmez

Oyuncu: Metin Akpınar

İklimler

Yönetmen Nuri B.Ceylan

Oyuncular: Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Ebru Ceylan

Şaşkın

Yönetmen: Şahin Alparslan

Oyuncular: Onur Ünsal, Evrim Akın

Kader

Yönetmen: Zeki Demirkubuz

Oyuncular: Vildan Atasever, Müge Ulusoy

L'orkestra

Yönetmen: Faruk Aksoy

Oyuncular: Fikret Kuşkan, Levent Kırca

Sınav

Yönetmen: Ömer Sorak

Oyuncular: İsmail Hacıoğlu, Hümeyra, Van Damme

Son Osmanlı

Yönetmen: Mustafa Şevki Doğan

Oyuncular: Kenan İmirzalıoğlu

Takva

Yönetmen: Özer Kızıltan

Oyuncular: Erkan Can, Meral Ülgen

İmparator Yolu

Yönetmen: Uğur Yücel

Oyuncular: Uğur Yücel, Kenan İmirzalıoğlu

The Play | Oyun by Pelin Esmer

Documentary on Turkish village women turned actresses screened in NY film festival. The award-wining documentary titled 'Oyun' (The Play) by Turkish director and screenwriter Pelin Esmer wasshown at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, which is marking its fifth anniversary. The festival, considered one of the most important in New York awarded the director as Best New Documentary Filmmaker: Pelin Esmer for "The Play" (Oyun), Turkey.

The Play Oyun 2005 70 min

Directed By: Pelin Esmer North American Premiere

"Those nine women doing theater in their own village would, in any case, write and put on stage a play based on their life stories, whether or not I made this movie. That was the most exciting aspect of this work for me. I wanted to shoot a fiction-like documentary rather than a documentary-like fiction film, without trying to be invisible but quietly integrating myself in their lives at that very village, at that very moment and with the very people living through this happening. It has been a very important experience for me to observe the film to go back and forth on the thin line between a documentary and a fiction film while I was shooting, whilst the line between their real lives and their play blurred. Our filming crew of three eventually turned out to be a part of their theater team. Working under similar circumstances they created, at the end of five weeks, "the play of their lives", and I created, at the end of two years, the film "The Play". Pelin Esmer

When Ummuye Kocak attends a school play, she gets the crazy idea that the women in her small mountain village in southern Turkey should put one on themselves. After all, they have each played roles of their own: mother, wife, nanny, farmer, firewood carrier. What does it matter if they only have a primary-school education and if some are functionally illiterate? The eight women enlisted by Kocak meet with school principal Hüseyin Arslanköylu, who listens to their stories of forced marriages, abusive and alcoholic husbands, and callous in-laws-stories they have never even told one another-and weaves them into one continuous multigenerational drama titled The Outcry of Women, in which the women are to play all the roles. As they run through their lines in the fields, rehearse in front of cardboard sets, and argue with the director-and with one another when one of them misses a rehearsal-they find that their husbands are treating them with a new respect. One woman's husband helps her memorize her lines, while another husband puts an end to his beatings. Local hairdresser Nesime Kahraman, who will play the role of the teacher, gives short haircuts to the women playing the male roles, while introverted narrator Behiye Yanik builds up her confidence by practicing her lines in front of a mirror. Kocak winds up playing Aytul, the daughter who thinks she can save the world by putting on a play, and in some ways, that is exactly what she does. Pelin Esmer's The Play is a joyous celebration of the strength that comes with finding your voice.
- Ann Lewinson

Pelin Esmer

Born in 1972 in Istanbul. She majored in sociology at Bogaziçi University. After graduating, she took lessons at Z1 film workshop. She was assistant director in a number of Turkish and foreign projects, including documentaries, features and commercials.

Her first film, the documentary “The Collector” (2002) received the Best Documentary Award at Rome Independent Films Festival and won the third place at Ankara Film Festival. It is also included in the Harvard Film Archive. She gave lectures at Kadir Has University Film Radio and TV Department. The Play is her first feature length documentary film.

Filmography

Oyun – The Play (2005)director, producer, cinematographer, editor
Credits
Original / English title
Oyun / The Play
Director, Producer, Cinematographer, Editor
Pelin Esmer

Co-producer
Nida Karabol Akdeniz
Executive Producer
Tolga Esmer
Original Music
Mazlum Cimen
Additional camera for the play scenes
Mustafa Unlu, Ozlem Ozbek
Production Manager
Peri Johnson
Sound
Emrah Yildirim, Bulent Kilic
Post Production Supervisor
Cem Yildirim
Players
Arslankoy Village Theater Group:
Behiye Yanik, Cennet Gunes, Fatma Fatih, Fatma Kahraman, Huseyin Arslankoylu, Naside Kahraman, Nesime Kahraman, Saniye Cengiz, Ummuye Kocak, Ummu Kurt, Zeynep Fatih (all as themselves).

Production Company, Year and Country: Sinefilm, 2005, Turkey
Genre : Documentary
Duration : 70 minutes
Language : Turkish
Subtitle : English, Spanish, French
Shooting Format : DV
Projection Format : DigiBeta (color), 35mm (color, no subtitles)
Sound : Stereo
Screen Ratio : 1:1,33


Koleksiyoncu – The Collector (2002) director, producer, cinematographer
received the Best Documentary Awardat Rome Independent Films Festival
Gonlumdeki Kosk Olmasa (2002)Omfavn Mig Måne/House of Hearts(by Elisabeth Rygard)first assistant director

Deli Yurek Bumerang Cehennemi (2001)Wildheart, Hell of Boomerang(by Osman Sinav)first assistant director

Cumhuriyet - The Republic (1998)(by Ziya Oztan)first assistant director

Conversations Across Bosphorus (1995)(by Jeanne Finley)assistant director

Film Festivali’nin yeni yönetmeni Azize Tan

Film Festivali’nin yeni yönetmeni Azize Tan

İstanbul Kültür Sanat Vakfı’nda, Hülya Uçansu’nun ayrılmasıyla boşalan İstanbul Film Festivali Yönetmenliği’ne, halen yönetmen yardımcılığı görevini yürüten Azize Tan getirildi.

Film Festivali’nin yeni yönetmeni Azize Tan

İstanbul Kültür Sanat Vakfı’nda, Hülya Uçansu’nun ayrılmasıyla boşalan İstanbul Film Festivali Yönetmenliği’ne, halen yönetmen yardımcılığı görevini yürüten Azize Tan getirildi.

İKSV’de 1996 yılında İstanbul Film Festivali’nde altyazı koordinatörü olarak çalışmaya başlayan Azize Tan, 2000 - 2002 yılları arasında İstanbul Film Festivali Koordinatörü ve 2003 yılından beri İstanbul Film Festivali Yönetmen Yardımcısı olarak görev yapıyordu.

Azize Tan ayrıca 5., 6. ve 7. İstanbul Bienalleri’nde de koordinatör olarak çalışmıştı.

İstanbul Film Festivali’nin yeni yönetmeni Azize Tan, Notre Dame de Sion Fransız Lisesi ve Boğaziçi Üniversitesi mezunudur, İngilizce ve Fransızca bilmektedir.

Istanbul Film Festival Director Hülya Uçansu

Thursday, April 13, 2006

Istanbul Film Festival Director Hulya Ucansu resigned yesterday. Ucansu will leave her post after the close of the 25th Istanbul Film Festival, according to a statement released by the Istanbul Culture Art Foundation (IKSV), organizers of the festival.

The resignation of Ucansu, working for the festival since 1983 and serving as director since 1984, announced during the second and final week of the festival, came as a major shock. Ucansu had wanted to inform the foreign guests of her decision which is why she announced her resignation before the festival ended.

See: İstanbul Film Festivali’nin gizli kahramanı HÜLYA UÇANSU

Hülya Uçansu

She was born in 1950 in Bandirma, Turkey. After graduating from the American College in Istanbul in 1971, she studied English Language and Literature at Istanbul University (1973-77). Her links with cinema began as a deputy manager at the Turkish Film Archive in 1975. After working on the organisation of various festivals in Turkey, she was appointed Director of the International Istanbul Film Festival in 1983, a post she has held ever since. In 1996, as the director of this festival, she was responsible for staging a great Turkish Film Retrospective at the Georges Pompidou Centre in Paris. She has taken part as a jury member at important international festivals, such as Venice, Montreal, Rotterdam, Montpellier, Valladolid or Taormina.

TIMES AND WINDS by Reha Erdem

TIMES AND WINDS | BEŞ VAKİT
Turkey, 2006 / 35 mm / Colour / 100’
Director: Reha Erdem; Cast:Özkan Özen, Ali Bey Kayalı, Elit İşcan

Reha Erdem's eagerly waited latest work after Mommy, I'm Scared, will premier and be first seen by its audience at the festival. A tiny, poor village, leaning on high cliffs, facing the vast sea, its outskirts laced with olive groves. The inhabitants of the village are simple, hard-working people who struggle to cope with the tough natural features of the land. They live by the rhythm of the earth, air, and water, of the day, the night and the seasons. Time in this village is divided into five times with the prayer call sounding. All things human happen in these five times. Three children, passing from childhood into adolescence, all aged twelve-thirteen, Ömer, Yakup and Yıldız, stand out from others in this five-timed film. Five times pass. The children grow up slowly, swinging back and forth between rage and guilt.

Awards | The 25th International İstanbul Film Festival

The 25th International İstanbul Film Festival is coming to an end

İstanbul Film Festival’s Closing Gala and Awards Ceremony took place on the evening of April 14, Saturday at Lütfi Kırdar Congress and Exhibition Hall.

With songs performed by Işın Karaca and Hüsnü Şenlendirici, the Gala was aired live on CNNTürk.

The “Cinema Honorary Awards” were presented to legendary French actors Gérard Depardieu and Catherine Deneuve by İKSV President Şakir Eczacıbaşı.

A Cock and Bull Story by Michael Winterbottom won the Golden Tulip Award, which was presented to Joy Wong, the representative of the film’s international distributor The Works, by the president of the Golden Tulip Jury, Jean-Paul Rappeneau.

Awards of the 25th International İstanbul Film Festival

International Competition

The International Jury of the 25th International İstanbul Film Festival presided over by Jean-Paul Rappeneau (France) and composed of Prune Engler (France), Reha Erdem (Turkey); Nick James (United Kingdom), Makram Khoury (Israel), and Işık Yenersu (Turkey) has decided to give:

* The Golden Tulip Award to “A Cock And Bull Story” directed by Michael Winterbottom (United Kingdom) for the simplicity, invention and humour with which the film successfully adapts a notoriously unadaptable novel, celebrating cinema and literature at the same time.

National Competition

The National Jury of the 25th International İstanbul Film Festival presided over by Zuhal Olcay (Turkey), and composed of Reis Çelik (Turkey), Leyla Özalp (Turkey), Daniela Sannwald (Germany) and Giorgio Gosetti di Sturmeck (Italy) has decided to give:

* The Best Turkish Film Of The Year Award to “Beş Vakit / Times And Winds” directed by Reha Erdem; for expressing the universal, the sentiments and conflicts pertaining to all human kind, as well as its courageous approach to taboo subjects with which the society needs to confront, without giving any concessions from cinematic concerns or aesthetics.

* The Best Director Of The Year Award to Kutluğ Ataman for his film “Iki Genç Kiz / Two Girls” for adapting and directing an international contemporary story with a radical aesthetic approach.

The Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Turkey gave a monetary prize of 40.000 YTL to each of the above-mentioned winners.

* The Best Actress Award to Şerif Sezer for her performance in “Babam ve Oğlum / My Father and Son”;

* The Best Actor Award has been conferred to Fikret Kuşkan for his performance in “Babam ve Oğlum / My Father and Son”;

The Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Turkey gave a monetary prize of 10.000 YTL to each of the above-mentioned winners.

* The Special Prize Of The Jury went to The People Of Muğla for their heartfelt support they have given to the art of cinema as cast and crew members in the film “Dondurmam Gaymak / Ice Cream, I Scream”.

Fipresci Awards

The FIPRESCI Jury of the 25th International Istanbul Film Festival presided over by Blagoja Kunovski (Macedonia), and composed of Ahmed Hassouna (Egypt), Ayla Kanbur (Turkey), Anita Piotrowska (Poland), Antti Selkokari (Finland) and Fırat Yücel (Turkey), gave:

* The FIPRESCI Award in the International Competition to “A Cock And Bull Story” by Michael Winterbottom (United Kingdom), for its challenging and original approach towards adapting the novel that seems to be impossible to be adapted.

* The FIPRESCI Award in the National Competition, in memory of Onat Kutlar, went to “Beş Vakit / Times And Winds” directed by Reha Erdem, for once again, proving his talent in the winning film as beautifully capturing the universal themes of life and death.

As in the previous years, Efes Pilsen has given a prize of US$ 30.000 to the winner of the Onat Kutlar Prize, Reha Erdem, to be used for his next film project.

People’s Choice Awards

People’s Choice Awards sponsored by the Radikal Newspaper and determined by the votes of the Festival audience, are given to:

* “Separate Lies” by Julian Fellowes (United Kingdom) in the International Competition, and “Babam Ve Oğlum / My Father And Son” by Çağan Irmak in the National Competition.

Berlinale 2006 | DER LEBENSVERSICHERER

DER LEBENSVERSICHERER
RUNNING ON EMPTY
L’ASSUREUR VIE
Regie: Bulent Akinci
Perspektive Deutsches Kino

Deutschland 2005
Lange 100 Min.
Format 35 mm, 1:1.85
Farbe

Cast
Burkhard Wagner Jens Harzer
Carolin Marina Galic
Heike Anna Maria Muhe
Charlie Christian Blumel
Walter Rosler Tom Jahn
Rashid Mehdi Nebbou
Frau Hufschmidt Eva Mannschott
Herr Hauser Oliver Marlo
Busfahrerin Birgit Funke
Frau Wokalek Patrizia Moresco
Herr Wokalek Hussi Kutlucan
Autowascher Daniel Jeroma
Philippe Lukas Weerts
Larissa Irina Potapenko
Jens Harzer
Stabliste
Buch Bulent Akinci
Kamera Henner Besuch
Schnitt Inge Schneider
Tina Baz
Ton Patrick Veigel
Musik Wim Mertens
Szenenbild Benedikt Lange
Kostum Dagmar Fabisch
Regieassistenz Franca Drewes
Produktionsltg. Kathrin Isberner
Eva-Maria Weerts
Produzenten Roman Paul
Gerhard Meixner
Co-Produzenten ZDF, Mainz
DFFB, Berlin
Redaktion Claudia Tronnier, ZDF
Produktion
Razor Film Produktion GmbH
Legiendamm 40
D-10969 Berlin
Tel.: 030-614 58 65
Fax: 030-61 20 18 63
info@razor-film.de
Weltvertrieb noch offen

RUNNING ON EMPTY
He knew it would take a long time – but this long?
Insurance salesman Burkhard Wagner left his family promising them a better
life on his return. All he has to do is sell enough policies. But time drags on
and Burkhard turns into the Flying Dutchman of Germany’s motorways. His
contact with his family now boils down to him leaving the odd report on
the answering machine. Nevertheless, Burkhard sticks resolutely to his plan.
But then, shortly before he has sold all his policies, he runs out of steam –
mentally and spiritually.

He meets luckless Carolin at a motorway service station. Business at Carolin’s
small hotel by the motorway has been in the doldrums for years but here,
after years of restless perigrinating, Burkhard at last finds a bit of peace and
happiness. The pair share a love of French chansons and are both lonely –
in spite of being together.

But somebody like Burkhard isn’t the type who sticks around. Carolin seems
to realise this more than anyone. And this is why she accompanies him, like
a guardian angel, on his last and most difficult journey – back to real life.

Bulent Akinci
Biografy

Born in Ankara on 10.3.1967, he moved to
Berlin in 1970. He was a musician, security
guard and an insurance salesman before
taking final school examinations and study-
ing philosophy, art history, drama and film
at the FU in Berlin. He took up studies at
the German Film and Television Academy in
Berlin in 1996. DER LEBENSVERSICHERER is
his first feature-length drama.

Filmografie
Kurzfilme
1996 WAS VOM LEBEN ÜBRIG BLEIBT
Dokumentarfilm
1997 EINES LANGEN AUGENBLICKES
REISE IN DIE NACHT
1998 KALTE
1999 DIE LETZTEN BILDER
2000 BROKEN
2001 EINE KLEINE GESCHICHTE
2005 DER LEBENSVERSICHERER

Article from UK | Fate by Demirkubuz

Fate

Phillip French
Sunday February 5, 2006
The Observer


Albert Camus's great philosophical novel, L'Etranger, published in Britain as The Outsider, was filmed in 1967 by Luchino Visconti with Marcello Mastroianni as Meursault, the affectless French-Algerian who kills an Arab for no particular reason in pre-World War Two Algiers and tells us his story while waiting to face the guillotine. The movie wasn't a success. Nor is Fate, Zeki Demirkubuz's transposition of the book to present-day Istanbul, where Meursault (played with appropriate blankness by Serdar Orcin) becomes Musa, a clerk in a shipping office, living with his elderly mother. In this version the hero is framed for a double murder and gets married. But generally the film is faithful to Camus's notion of Meursault as a seemingly conscienceless man, who is in fact at odds with society (and condemned) because he speaks the truth about the essential meaninglessness of life. The film is not without interest, but in attempting to capture the novel's laconic prose it becomes flat and unvaried in its rhythms.

Berlinale 2006 / Offside - Eine andere Liga

Offside - Eine andere Liga / Germany, 2005, 110 min

Director: Buket Alakus Cast: Karoline Herfurth, Thierry van Werveke, Ken Duken

OFFSIDE
For Hayat, a 20-year-old girl of Turkish-German background, football is the most important thing in her life. She’s the best and most spirited player on her football team. But all of a sudden she’s got other things to think about. The doctors diagnose breast cancer. The operation changes her life, but she’s a fighter and soon wants to pick up where she left off.
Hayat grew up with her father Baba Can – her mother died of cancer when Hayat was still a small child. No wonder that Baba Can is worried about his daughter. He forbids her to overdo and most of all to play football, and cancels her membership in the team. But he hasn’t reckoned with the tenacity of his daughter. Behind his back she joins up with ragtag bunch of social misfits who make up the Hamburg woman’s football team FC Schanze. Soon the girls are swept along by her courage and enthusiasm. Not only the team, but above all the trainer Toni is impressed by her. But he can’t seem to understand why his attempts to flirt with her are nipped in the bud. Hayat is no less attracted to him, but for obvious reasons, she feels com­plete­ly insecure. Should she confide her secret to him? How will he react when she tells him about the operation?

OFFSIDE, the director explains, is “not a story about an illness, but rather deals with finding a way back into life. In this extreme situation football becomes literally a game of life or death for my protagonist, because sports help her to accept her body anew.”

Buket Alakus Biography
Born in Istanbul in 1971, she grew up in Hamburg. After finishing her studies in communication at the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin, she began studying film directing at the University of Hamburg in 1996. After completing a number of short films, she directed her first feature filmANAM in
2000, which was awarded among other things the Audience Award at Filmfest Hamburg and the Prix Europa. She is currently working on the feature films BABA OGLU and MAX 259.

Lange 110 Min.
Format 35 mm, 1:1.85
Farbe
Stabliste
Buch Buket Alakus
Jan Berger
Kamerafuhrung Bella Halben
Kameraassistenz Enno Grabenhorst
Daniel Leibold
Schnitt Andreas Radtke
Schnittassistenz Jessica Ehlebracht
Sounddesign Andreas Henke
Ton Corinna Zink
Michael Kunz
Mischung Sascha Heiny
Musik Ali N. Askin
Musik-Consulting Jan Kopke
Christoph Wieland
Szenenbild Iris Trescher
Requisite Endres Lober
Britta Leiter
Spezialeffekte Endres Lober
Kostum Rike Russig
Maske Kathi Kullack
Samira Ghassabeh
Regieassistenz Karen Brunnbauer
Casting Deborah Congia
Herstellungsltg. Mohammad
Farokhmanesh
Produktionsltg. Christian
Vennefrohne
Aufnahmeleitung Anke Homburg
Produzenten Ralph Schwingel
Stefan Schubert
Producer Bjorn Vosgerau
Redaktion Burkhard Althoff, ZDF
Das kleine Fernseh-
spiel, Mainz
mit Arte, Strasbourg
Produktion
Wuste Filmproduktion
Schulterblatt 58
D-20357 Hamburg
Tel.: 040-431 70 60
Fax: 040-430 00 12
www.wuestefilm.de
wueste@wuestefilm.de
Weltvertrieb
Bavaria Film International
Bavariafilmplatz 8
D-82031 Geiselgasteig
Tel.: 089-64 99 26 86
Fax: 089-64 99 37 20
www.bavaria-film-international.de
bavaria.international@bavaria-film.de
Toni Ken Duken
Baba Can Thierry van Werveke
Ali Zarah Jane McKenzie
Silke Verena Wolfien
Arztin Katrin Pollitt
Hayats Chefin Nursel Köse
Trainerin, SC Elbe Charlotte Crome
Spielerinnen des
FC Schanze
Fatos Aziza A. Yildirim
Biggi Paula Paul
Viva Nneka Egbuna
Susan Nikola Kastner
Babs Ruth Weyand
Maja Cecile Decker
Nana Sung-Hee Son
Momo Jana Nietner
Alex Claudia Detloff
Karoline Herfurth, Ken Duken

In Memoriam : İlhan Arakon

İlhan Arakon (b, 1915 Edirne-February 3, 2006, Istanbul)
İLHAN G. ARAKON

Türk Sinemasında sanatçı ve eğitimci kişiliğiyle önemli bir yeri olan, görüntü yönetmeni, sanat yönetmeni, yönetmen olarak 400‘ün üzerinde film yapan, ülkemizdeki ilk sinema eğitimini başlatan Sinema-TV Enstitüsü‘nde Prof.Sami Şekeroğlu başkanlığındaki ilk eğitim kadrosunda Lütfi Akad, Metin Erksan, Halit Refiğ ile birlikte yer alan İlhan Arakon,1916'da doğdu.

1944'de profesyonel olarak görüntü yönetmenliği yapmaya başladı. 1951'de yönetmenliğini kardeşi Aydın Arakon'un yaptığı "İstanbul'un Fethi" adlı filmde Görüntü Yönetmeni olarak muhteşem sahneler yarattı. 1953'de ilk renkli Türk belgeselini, aynı yıl ilk konulu renkli Türk filmi olan "Salgın"ı çekti. Ülkemizde ilk kez sinemaskop film denemeleri yaptı ve bu teknikle çok sayıda film çekti. Türkiye'deki ilk haber ajansı olan A.D.S.'yi kurarak habercilik alanında öncü oldu. Ülkemizdeki ilk Televizyon yayınını başlatan Teknik Üniversite Televizyonunun kuruluşunda Prof.Dr. Adnan Ataman ile birlikte çalıştı.

50 yılı aşkın bir süredir Türk Sineması içinde ürün veren Arakon, "Gençlik Günahı", "İstanbul'un Fethi", "Hıçkırık", "Kadın Asla Unutmaz", "Vahşi Çiçek", "Aşk-ı Memnu" gibi gerek teknik gerekse estetik yönden üstün yapımlarda görüntü yönetmeni ve sanat yönetmeni olarak çalıştı. Ayrıca "Eski Evler Eski Ustalar", "Dünya Durdukça" (Mimar Sinan belgeseli) gibi kültürel birikimimizi ele alan belgesellerde teknik danışmanlık ve görüntü yönetmenliği yaptı. Yurt içinde ve dışında bir çok ödül kazandı.

1974'de Prof.Sami Şekeroğlu tarafından İstanbul Devlet Güzel Sanatlar Akademisi Sinema-TV Enstitüsü'nde başlatılan eğitim çalışmalarına katıldı ve ülkemizde ilk kez akademik düzeyde sinema eğitimi veren Sinema-TV Enstitüsü‘nde Öğretim Görevlisi olarak çalışmaya başladı. Bu tarihten başlayarak son nefesine kadar bu kurumdan ayrılmadı.

Sinema-TV Enstitüsü‘nden başlayarak bugünki adıyla Mimar Sinan Güzel Sanatlar Üniversitesi Güzel Sanatlar Fakültesi Sinema-TV Bölümü‘nde kesintisiz olarak 32 yıl lisans, Yüksek Lisans ve Sanatta Yeterlik kademelerinde dersler verdi. Gerek teorik gerekse uygulamalı derslerde profesyonel alanda edindiği bilgi ve deneyimlerini öğrencilerine aktardı.

1997 yılında Mimar Sinan Üniversitesi Senatosu kararı ile kendisine Fahri Profesör ünvanı verildi.

İlhan G.Arakon‘u, 3 Şubat 2006 Cuma günü kaybettik. Mimar Sinan Güzel Sanatlar Üniversitesi Sinema-TV Merkezi‘nde 4 Şubat 2006 Cumartesi günü saat 11.30‘da yapılacak törenin ardından aynı gün Zincirlikuyu Mezarlığı içindeki camide kılınacak ikindi namazını takiben Zincirlikuyu‘daki aile mezarlığında toprağa verilecektir.


As Director
1. Şahinler Diyarı (1971)
2. Garipler Adası (1955)

As Cinematographer
1. Ormanın Ruhsal Sağlıkla İlgisi (1973)
2. Ormanların Ekonomik Değeri (1973)
3. Ormancılığımızda Dün ve Bugün (1973)
4. Ormanları Koruma (1973)
5. Orman Yetiştirme, Ağaçlandırma (1973)
6. Orman-Köy İlişkileri (1973)
7. Orman Endüstrisi (1973)
8. Ayşecik Bahar Çiçeği (1971)
9. Bütün Anneler Melektir (1971)
10. Kezban Paris`te (1971)
11. Severek Ayrılalım (1971)
12. Vahşi Çiçek (1971)
13. Yarın Ağlayacağım (1971)
14. Tamam mı Canım? (1971)
15. Adsız Cengaver (1970)
16. Atsız Cengaver (1970)
17. Kezban Roma`da (1970)
18. Kadın Asla Unutmaz (Nisan Yağmuru) (1968)
19. Kezban (1968)
20. Kederli Günlerim (1967)
21. Samanyolu (1967)
22. Hıçkırık (1965)
23. Tanrının Bağışı Orman (1964)
24. Bir Gazetenin Hikayesi (1964)
25. Unilever (1964)
26. Zümrüt (Siyah Yıldızlar) (1959)
27. Pusu (1957)
28. Büyük Sır (1956)
29. Kalbimin Şarkısı (1956)
30. Garipler Adası (1955)
31. Gün Doğarken (1955)
32. Kaçak (1954)
33. Salgın (1954)
34. Köroğlu - Türkan Sultan (1953)
35. Ankara Ekspresi (1952)
36. Kanlı Çiftlik (1952)
37. Kızıltuğ (1952)
38. Yurda Dönüş (1952)
39. İstanbul`un Fethi (1951)
40. Vatan İçin (1951)
41. Bir Fırtına Gecesi (1950)
42. Ayşe`nin Duası (1949)
43. Çığlık (1949)
44. Efsuncu Baba (1949)
45. Uçuruma Doğru (1949)
46. Dinmeyen Sızı (Sonsuz Izdırap) (1949)
47. Dümbüllü Macera Peşinde (1948)
48. Efe Aşkı (1948)
49. Gençlik Günahı (1947)
50. Seven Ne Yapmaz (1947)

As Writer
1. Şahinler Diyarı (1971)
2. Garipler Adası (1955)

As Producer
1. Şahinler Diyarı (1971)

Awards
1955 Türk Film Dostları Derneği/ Best Cinmematography with (Kaçak)
17.İstanbul Film Festivali, 1998 Lifetime honour Award

Rotterdam 2006

Razan (USA/Turkey)
USA/Turkey 2006
director:Aslihan Unaldi
production:New York University, Tisch School of the Arts, Dep. Gratuate, Thomas Perry
sales:Aslihan Unaldi
print:Aslihan Unaldi
scenario:Aslihan Unaldi
cast:hd Kamel, Sami Mitwasi, Elena Zazanis, J. Teddy Garces
camera:Rob Hauer
editor:Tocinovski Milan Sako, Aslihan Unaldi
art direction Mark Jackson, Etienne Kallos
sound:Hakim Robinson, Lihi Orbach
length:10'
A young woman has decided to blow herself up in a suicide attack. After she has strapped on the explosive belt and walks the street in the crowds, she starts to have her doubts.


Harmonia mundi (Turkey) Turkey 2005
director:Veysel Gencten
production:Veysel Gencten
sales:Veysel Gencten
print:Veysel Gencten
scenario:Veysel Gencten
cast:Hulya Safak
camera:Veysel Gencten
editor:Veysel Gencten
music:Omer Faruk Tekbilek
length:6'

A colourful time-lapse portrait of Istanbul and the way in which life in the city on the Bosporus passes. Adorned with an impressive series of sunsets, the film flirts with the borders of kitsch.

Two Turkish projects at Cinemart 2006

GITMEK, Huseyin Karabey, Ajans 21 (Turkey)
YUMURTA, Semih Kaplanoglu, Kaplan Film Yapim (Turkey)

23rd CineMart
January 29 - February 2, 2006

CineMart
Karel Doormanstraat 278-B
3012 GP Rotterdam
The Netherlands


International Film Festival Rotterdam
CineMart
phone: +31 10 890 90 90
fax: +31 10 890 90 91
e-mail: cinemart@
filmfestivalrotterdam.com

WAITING FOR THE CLOUDS by Yesim Ustaoglu, CineMart 2002 was screened at Berlinale Panorama in 2005

Berlinale Entry: 37 Uses of a Dead Sheep

37 Uses of a Dead Sheep/Photo: Nikki Parrott

This UK/Turkey coproduction made it to Berlinale's Forum Section for 2006

Brief synopsis:Until 25 years ago, the Kirghiz tribe lived a quasi-Iron Age existence in one of the remotest places on earth. Now, having migrated an amazing five times, they live in Turkey, a tribe divided. Those over 30 pine for their nomadic history and the rugged mountains of their homeland; the young have a modern education and live in a world of pop music and internet cafés.
A feature-length mix of the ethnographic and authored documentary forms, the collaboration between distinctive director Ben Hopkins and the Kirghiz tribe makes this film a unique record of a unique people.

Format: DigiBeta
Year of production: 2005
Running time: 85 mins
Director: Ben Hopkins
Co-Producers: Natasha Dack, Nikki Parrott, Ben Hopkins
Editor: Marco van Welzen
Screenwriter: Ben Hopkins
Director of Photography: Gary Clarke
Music: Paul Lewis
Principal Cast: The Kirghiz tribe
Production Company:Tigerlily Films Studio 17 The Whitechapel Centre Myrdle Street
London E1 1HL, England
Telephone +44 (0)20 7247 1107
info@tigerlilyfilms.com
Sales Agent:Electric Sky 1 Clifton Mews Clifton Hill Brighton BN1 3HR, England
Telephone +44 (0)12 7322 4240
Fax +44 (0)12 7322 4250
info@electricsky.com
www.electricsky.com


Ben Hopkins
Born in Hong Kong in 1969, director Ben Hopkins always wanted to be a writer. He wrote his first poems at nine, a novel at twelve, and it was only following a trip to the Everyman Cinema in the leafy London suburb of Hampstead that he was bitten by the movie bug. Hopkins read Modern Languages at Oxford, directing his first play as an 18-year-old undergraduate and winning the Oxford Dramatic Society's Best Director Award. His Royal College of Art graduation film National Achievement Day won a string of awards. Hopkins has described his early short films as 'shite' but Robert Jones (The Usual Suspects) was impressed enough to produce his debut feature Simon Magus.

BEN HOPKINS FILMOGRAPHY
2000 The Nine Lives of Thomas Katz
1998 Simon Magus

Agent: Jane Fuller Associates, 10 Golden Square London W1R 3AF
Tel: +44 20 7494 2067
Fax: +44 20 7734 9147
Email: jfa@dircon.co.uk

'Jail made me a film director'

'Jail made me a film director'

How a notorious Istanbul prison forged the career of one of Europe's finest movie-makers. By Fiachra Gibbons

Monday January 30, 2006
The Guardian

Istanbul has been silenced by a huge fall of snow and nothing is moving. The ferries have frozen to their quays, and, with the traffic stilled, the old city from which the Romans and the Ottomans ruled two of the world's greatest empires has stirred from its smoggy sleep. Istanbullus treasure these days that come along once or twice a decade when an ice storm sweeps down from the steppes and returns that mythic city to them.

Holed up in his apartment, Zeki Demirkubuz has given himself up like everyone else to the luxuriant mid-winter melancholy this enforced holiday affords.

The country needs the break. There's been blood in streets for the past month. First with the annual feast of the sacrifice, the kurban bayram, when millions of sheep and cattle were put to Abraham's knife, followed by more wholesale slaughter when bird flu sent the country into panic. Then there was the anger and shame as a threat of imprisonment - now thankfully lifted - hung over the country's greatest writer, Orhan Pamuk, for "insulting Turkishness", while its most notorious assassin, Mehmet Ali Agca, the man who shot the last pope and murdered one of Turkey's most revered liberal journalists, was set free. In a head-spinning week in which the dark old certainties about the military "secret state" that reputedly ruled Turkey were turned on their head, the murderer was returned to prison and the innocent man allowed to go free.

Turkey has changed more in the past year than it has in the past 70. But Demirkubuz won't be drawn: "Every day I hear something that surprises me and makes me feel happier. But I wonder if it is real or just psychological."

Surely a film director who was jailed for his beliefs - and whose life might have come from Albert Camus's The Stranger, whose plot he borrowed for his film Fate - has something to say about this? Like Camus's hero, who was also punished for a crime he didn't commit, Demirkubuz appears not to care.

"Politics is what it is, but for me loneliness is best," he says with nonchalance and certainty. "Every artist needs to be a stranger in a way. It is very important for me to be alone, either for my thoughts or my writing. Silence is often more powerful than words ... "

Demirkubuz is one of the utterly unclassifiable talents Turkish cinema has quietly produced to surprise, delight and challenge the world. Like his friend Nuri Bilge Ceylan, responsible for such masterpieces as the Cannes-winning Distant, he seems surprised that his serious films have struck such an international chord. Yet he is one of a select club of directors to have had two films competing at Cannes at the same time, and probably the only one who credits the generals who threw him into prison for turning him into a film-maker.

At 17, Demirkubuz was jailed without trial by the military junta that overthrew the government in 1980. That September the ancient fountains that had watered Istanbul through sieges by the Huns, Mongols, Arabs, Crusaders and the Turks themselves, were cut to stop revolts breaking out as the army and gendarmerie hunted out thousands of students and activists. Many were never seen again. Demirkubuz was a member of a Maoist group that, even now, he refuses to name - many leftwing parties are still banned and more than 100 members of one militant group have died over the past six years in prison through hunger strikes or by burning or blowing themselves up.

Idealism was not something you wore like T-shirt in Turkey of the 1970s and 1980s. It required commitment and usually sacrifice. It was when this ideological war between left and right spilled on to the streets that Agca cut his teeth as a killer, in rightwing ultra-nationalist death squads working with the military.

Demirkubuz found himself in Istanbul's Metris prison, the most notorious of those used to hold political prisoners, among them poets, writers, musicians and thinkers. "That is where my education began," he said. "Sometimes I think that if it wasn't for jail, I would not be a film-maker."

For many of his generation, arrest or imprisonment was normal, even a rite of passage. Many were destroyed or scarred by the experience, but it was the making of the young Demirkubuz, whose peasant family had just moved to Istanbul from Isparta in the south. "Before I was arrested I only read political books. Prison introduced me to the classics." The first novel he read was Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment. And like Ceylan and Pamuk he became obsessed with the Russian master, particularly with his novel The Devils, about a group of small-town revolutionaries who turn on each other.

"Dostoyevsky was a shock to me. It took me 10 years to begin to understand him," he said. He began to realise that character, spirit and nature are more important than politics, and that "pain was the one thing that united us. Pain is everywhere, we must all face it. All my films are about it. Dostoyevsky wrote the same book again and again with different characters working their pain through different situations. I try to make the same film over and over again. Changing subject is just opportunism to me, something that is done for political or financial reasons."

In anyone else this might sound sententious, but in films like Block C, Innocence and Confession, Demirkubuz has striven for the depth his literary heroes reached for. Fate is basically about the difference between fatalism and existentialism - about a man who doesn't seem to care about anything. Not something you'd think would keep you on the edge of your seat for two hours. But it does.

If I told you that the film that followed it, Confession, is about a man who cares too much, and that between them they probably tell you all you need to know about Demirkubuz, you'll see why he believes cinema can never be too simple.

· Fate is released on February 3.

FATE (Yazgi) to open in UK

30 September 2005 05/86

bfi Distribution presents

FATE (Yazgi)
(Turkey 2001)
Written, directed and edited by Zeki Demirkubuz118 mins / colour / English subtitles / cert 15

Starring: Serdar Orcin, Zeynep Tokus, Engen Gunaydin, Demir Karahan
Release date: 3 February 2006
Opening venue: ICA, London

Fate, the brilliantly accomplished fourth feature of Turkish writer-director Zeki Demirkubuz, is an adaptation of Albert Camus' L’Etranger (The Outsider), transposed to present-day Istanbul.

Musa (based on Meursault, the anti-hero of Camus' novel) is a blank but wryly amused customs clerk who lives quietly with his elderly mother. He seeks no control over his own destiny but simply allows life to take its course. When, one day, he finds his mother dead at home, he shows no sign of emotion and maybe even experiences a sense of relief. But life, driven by fate, has some unexpected twists in store.

Born in Isparta in 1964, Demirkubuz was jailed for three years at the age of 17 for alleged communist ties. On release from prison he became a film-maker - more, he claims, by accident than by design. After working as an assistant director, he set up his own production company, Mavi Film, deliberately situating himself outside of Istanbul's mainstream Yesilcam Studios (Turkey's answer to Hollywood). Independent and uncompromising, Demirkubuz controls almost every aspect of his films, making few concessions to prevailing trends.

Written, directed and edited by Demirkubuz, Fate is austere cinema with a blackly comic edge. Beautifully controlled, with its restrained performances, long takes and sparing use of music (apart from two brief bursts of Mahler), it is a daring and deeply compelling enquiry into the nature of personal responsibility.

Together with the films of Nuri Bilge Ceylan (whose Uzak [Distant] was released last year to great acclaim), the work of Demirkubuz has sparked an international revival of interest in Turkish arthouse cinema. With two of his feature films, Fate and Confession, selected for the Un Certain Regard section of Cannes in 2002, Demirkubuz established himself as a talent to watch and was hailed as an important new auteur. His films were subsequently spotlighted at the Edinburgh, Vienna and Toronto Film Festivals, also receiving a complete retrospective at New York's Anthology Film Archives. With the release of Fate, bfi Distribution is proud to introduce a major new talent to UK audiences.


For further information please contact: Sarah Harvey on 020 7703 2253
or email press@sarahharvey.info or Elizabeth Benjamin at the bfi on 020 7849 4465 or email Elizabeth.Benjamin@bfi.org.uk

NOTES FOR EDITORS:

FILMOGRAPHY - ZEKI DEMIRKUBUZ

1994 Block C (C Blok)
1997 Innocence (Masumiyet)
1999 The Third Page (Ucuncu Sayfa)
2001 Fate (Yazgi)
2001 Confession (Itiraf)
2003 The Waiting Room (Bekleme Odasi)

The British Film Institute’s purpose is to champion moving image culture in all its richness and diversity across the UK, for the benefit of as wide an audience as possible, and to create and encourage debate. It does this by developing opportunities for all UK citizens to engage with film, TV and media heritage and culture. The bfi also works closely with national and regional partners to provide a focus for the diversity of UK moving image culture, while playing a key role in influencing the national and international agenda.

Established in 1933, the bfi provides a wide range of services, including: bfi National Film Theatre (NFT), bfi London IMAX Cinema (Britain’s largest screen), bfi National Library (the world’s leading specialist film & television library), bfi National Film & Television Archive (NFTVA, one of the world’s oldest and largest culturally significant film & TV archives), bfi London Film Festival, bfi London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival, bfi Distribution (making a wealth of world cinema available for theatrical screening across the UK), the renowned bfi DVD & Video catalogue of world and historic cinema, a wide range of award-winning bfi publications and bfi education materials, film footage, film stills, and research services for the commercial media industry, and the highly-respected Sight & Sound film magazine.

Eurimages Support for Turkey

Eurimages supports 13 European co-productions
STRASBOURG, 12.10.2005

At its 97th meeting held on 9.10.2005 - 11.10.2005 in Paris, the Council of Europe Eurimages Fund Board of Management agreed to support 13 feature films for a total amount of 3.89 Million Euros.

There is one Turkish co-production among the films that received support

Kader- Zeki Demirkubuz (Turkey, Greece)

Support was awarded to the following distributors:

SANARTFILM (Germany) for the distribution of the film
Yazi Tura (Heads or Tails)- Ugur Yucel (Turkish / turc)
BIR FILM ITHALAT (Turkey) for the distribution of the films
Manderlay- Lars Von Trier (Danish / danois)
Va, vis et deviens- Radu Mihaileanu (France)
CHANTIER FILMS (Turkey) for the distribution of the film
La Femme de Gilles- Frédéric Fonteyne (BE)
ERMAN FILM VE SINEMACILIK A.S. (Turkey) for the distribution of the film
L' Annulaire- Diane Bertrand (France)
SIR FILM ITHALAT VE PAZARLAMA (Turkey) for the distribution of the film
Dear Wendy- Thomas Vinterberg (Danish / danois)

Moreover, it has been decided to integrate retroactively from 1st January 2005 the six Turkish cinemas which applied for membership :

Atamerkez Safranbolu Sinemalari, Safranbolu
Cinebonus Konak, Izmir
Kadiköy Sinemalari, Kadiköy/Istanbul
Burc Altiparmak Bursa, Bursa
Diyarbakir Avrupa Sinemasi, Diyarbakir
Büyülüfener Kultur Merkezi, Ankara

Emrah Yucel to Design Turkey’s Golden Orange Film Festival Posters

Published: Saturday, August 27, 2005
Source: zaman.com

Famous Turkish graphic designer, Emrah Yucel, who is known with his designs for Hollywood movies, will design the 42nd Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival poster, the First Eurasia International Film Festival posters and the Eurasia Film Fair posters that will be held in Turkey between September 24 and October 1.

The 42nd Golden Orange Film Festival, which is organized by Antalya Culture and Arts Foundation (AKSAV) and the Turk Audiovisual Culture Foundation (TURSAK), is becoming an international festival. Yucel noting he designs posters to contribute to the innovative studies by TURSAK’s Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival, said he would also be participating in the festival. Living in New York and Los Angeles since 1996, Yucel is a two time winner of the KeyArt award, the most important award in the sector in Los Angeles granted for 35 years. Yucel put his signature on several famous movie posters such as “Cold Mountain”, in which starred Nicole Kidman and Jude Law, in a Tarantino film “Kill Bill” with Uma Thurman, and one of the best Far Eastern films the “Hero”.

Fratricide / Kardes Katili / Brudermord) (2004)

The World Premire of Fratricide will be as part of the competition in Locarno Film Festival 3-13 August 2005 | Turkish Cinema newsletter

Fratricide (Brudermord)

Yilmaz Arslan

“I’m a f---ing moralist!” says Yilmaz Arslan.

It has been a long time since we last used the “m”-word, but in a world dominated by Hollywood, it’s good to remind us that there are still filmmakers out there who are driven by more than the desire to produce multi-part, merchandising-driven franchises.

Yilmaz Arslan, whose mother tongue is Arabic, was born in 1968 in Turkey and came to Germany with his parents when he was eight.

Fratricide, which uses the archaic form of tragedy to tell of the hatred, hardened by generations, between Turks and Kurds - an encounter with deadly consequences between two pairs of brothers in a foreign country - has its roots in a planned documentary. “I originally wanted to make a film about young Kurdish asylum seekers,” says Arslan, “but as the kids opened up and spoke to me I realized it was just too hot a topic. It would have gotten them into trouble. But it still boiled inside me and I decided to do it using fiction.”

Failing to get German subsidy money (“Ask them why!” says Arslan), he very quickly found Luxemburg and French partners. “There was instant understanding,” he says. “I got almost a declaration of love for the project.”

As for using non-actors, Arslan says “the film screams for them! I need fresh, young faces. They can’t look like they’re from Germany. The film has to be as authentic as possible; it has to look as authentic as possible. I’ve had good experience with amateurs and if you make an effort, give them a chance, they open up and develop.”

In examining why young people undertake the arduous and dangerous journey to Europe, Fratricide reveals “the almost magical attraction it holds for those fleeing war, or desperately seeking a better life. It’s a privilege to be a European,” says Arslan, “and it’s very important to sensitize these rich countries to the effect they have on others. It attracts them but they still remain spiritually crippled.”

“The world is already divided into a hierarchical structure,“ says Arslan. “The US, Europe, Asia, Africa. Tension leads to war and solving war is an economic factor. Children and young people are always the victims. They lose their lives and perspectives. Right now, there is a small war being waged against small, weak people right here in Europe. It’s meaningless and unfair.”

Yilmaz Arslan was born in Kazanli/Turkey in 1968 and came to West Germany in 1975. He founded the theater group "Summer-Winter" in 1988 and completed his secondary school education in 1991. His 1992 directorial debut, Passages, was named Best First Film at the San Sebastian and received a Silver Rose Prize in Bergamo and a nomination to the German Film Awards in 1993. His other films include Yara, which premiered at Venice in 1998, and Angst isst Seele auf (2002), which premiered at Venice in 2002.

Genre Drama
Category Feature Film Cinema
Year of Production 2004
Director Yilmaz Arslan
Screenplay Yilmaz Arslan
Director of Photography Juergen Juerges
Editor Peter Przygodda
Music by Rabih Abou-Khalil
Producers Yilmaz Arslan, Donato Rotunno, Eddy Géradon-Luyckx, Eric Tavitian, Horst Knechtel
Production Company Yilmaz Arslan Film/Mannheim, in co-production with Tarantula/Luxemburg, Tarantula/Paris, CineImages/Martinsried
Format 35 mm, color, 1:1.85
Shooting Language German/Turkish/Kurdisch
Shooting in France, Luxemburg, Kurdistan, June - August 2004
Sound Technology Dolby SR
Festival Screenings Locarno 2005
With backing from MFG Baden-Wuerttemberg, Hessische Rundfunk Foerderung, MEDIA, Rhone Alpes Cinema, Film Fonds Luxemburg

Contact
Yilmaz Arslan Filmproduktion GmbH
Yilmaz Arslan, Petra Barkowski-Arslan
J6, 1
68159 Mannheim/Germany
phone +49-6 21-1 58 29 38
fax +49-6 21-1 56 93 66
email: arslan-film@web.de

HEAD-ON | GERMAN and US Posters

 

BOATS OUT OF WATERMELON RINDS (2004)

BOATS OUT OF WATERMELON RINDS (Karpuz Kabugundan Gemiler Yapmak)
Turkey 2004 Directed and Screenplay by: Ahmet Uluçay
Cinematography by: Ilker Berke
Edited by: Mustafa Presheva, Senad Presheva
Sound: Bülent Nurgonul
Music by: Ender Akay, Alper Tunga Demirel
Costume Dewsign by: Kostüm Pinar Kesen, Fatos Acar
Cast:Ismail Hakki Taslak (Recep), Kadir Kaymaz (Mehmet)
Production: IFR A.S Altzeren Sok. No:1 Levent Istanbul, Türkey Tel: 212 3247624 film@ifr.com.tr
Distribution: Silkroad Productions 8 rue Myrha 75018 Paris, France T 1 53 41 4161 bh@silkroadproduction.com
35 mm/1:1,85/Colour 97 minutes

Director's remarks: Ahmet Ulucay was born in Tepecik, a village near Tavsanli, where he has always lived. Over the last 15 years he made successful short films, including: Optical Dreams (1994), Pearl is Under the Water (1996), Epileptic Film (1998, Award for Best Film at the International Film Festival in Ankara), Exorcise (2000). Karpuz kabugundan gemiler yapmak (Boats Out of Watermelon Rinds) is his first feature film.

Synopsis: An autobiographical first feature film from Ahmet Ulucay who still lives in the village of Tepecik, where he was born. It's the 60s and Recep and Mehmet are two boys crazy about movies. After work, they spend their evenings building a film projector, witnessed only by Crazy Omer, the village idiot. But things begin to change when Recep falls for Nihal, the eldest daughter of the widow Nezihe. His feelings are not reciprocated, whereas Nihal's younger sister, Guler, is interested in Recep who is definitely not interested in her...

Synopsis 2: The film, which is about two village boys who passionately love movies, has its roots in the writer/director Ahmet Ulucay's own childhood. The story takes place during one summer season in the late sixties. The location is the town of Tavsanli and the village of Tepecik. The boys work and go through romantic experiences in town during the daytime, and dream about cinema in their village at nights. The cast is comprised entirely of the local people of Tavsanli, the site of almost all the locations in the film. The format used for shooting is miniDV which was transferred to 35mm after post-production.

Film Notes: Boats out of Watermelon Rinds unfurls the story of Recep and Mehmet, two young friends of modest means and admirable ambitions. It is only thanks to their evening exploits that the boys can endure their apprenticeships with, respectively, a watermelon vendor and a domineering barber. After discovering that the small local theater regularly discards worn-out film, the boys have begun collecting and, in their own strange fashion (think wooden-box-and-a-lightbulb), screening these cinematic cast-offs each night in an abandoned shed. They lack a projector, barely understand the mechanical processes involved and have only the village fool, crazy Ömer, as an audience. Nonetheless, they are undaunted. Shot entirely on digital video and blown up to 35mm, Boats out of Watermelon Rinds is lushly painted with inspired plays of colour and a keen eye for landscape; it conjures up a time and place far away, but somehow completely familiar. This is an infatuating, prodigious debut and a stirring tribute to a lifelong love of the cinema. (Dimitri Eipides)

LOVELORN / GONUL YARASI (2005)

GONUL YARASI
Directed by: Yavuz Turgul
Cast: Sener Sen, Metlem Cumbul, Timucin Esen, Guven Kirac, Devin Ozgun. 2 hours 23 mins

Idealist elementary school teacher Nazim (named after the great communist poet Nazim Hikmet) retires and returns home to Istanbul, after a 15 year term in the poor, forgotten Kurdish-Alevite village in Eastern Turkey. Politely ignored by his children who secretly despise him since he chose his ideal over his family long ago, he begins a new (night) life as a taxi driver.
There he meets a fallen single mother who works as a "singer" in a sleazy night club. He takes the mother and her daugther in to protect them from the stalker ex-husband, falls in love with her, and the drama unfolds.

BBC Review:
Lovelorn (Gonul Yarasi) A minicab driver gets more than he bargained for when he helps a nightclub singer in this Turkish drama.

A minor Turkish melodrama that's easy on the eye but not the watch, Gonul Yarasi follows ageing minicab driver Nazim (Sener Sen), who picks up more than just another passenger when he befriends nightclub singer Dunya (Meltem Cumbul). His grown-up kids think he's lost his marbles, but Nazim wants to help the beautiful young woman and her daughter escape her abusive ex-husband. Things aren't that simple, though, as Gonul Yarasi tries to live up to its melancholy.

"The woman is a rascal and the man is a lunatic - don't get caught in between," warns Nazim's greying pal Atakan (Sumer Tilmac) an old-time cabbie with plenty of experience on the clock. He's not the only one who's worried: Nazim's kids think the singer's a gold-digging floozy who's after their inheritance, while Dunya's violent ex-hubby (Timucin Esen) just wants to get custody of their traumatised - and now mute - daughter.

"A LIGHTWEIGHT TALE"

Wife beating, rape and child abduction may sound awfully serious, but nothing's ever that terrible - or threatening - in this lightweight tale. Lathering the more threatening moments in soapsuds, G Yarasi works best when playing up the comedy. Cantankerous old Atakan steals the show as a bellowing ex-heavy grown fat and old, leaving gifted Turkish actor Sener Sen to look as unconvinced by the tart-with-a-heart storyline as the rest of us. A confrontation over the family's inheritance and an undeveloped political subtext threaten to turn the movie sour yet, apart from a few mournful nightclub ballads, the lovelorn tears seem insincere.

In Turkish with English subtitles.

Andrew Pulver
Friday January 28, 2005
The Guardian

As discussions continue over its social and political direction, Turkey is indulging in some serious cultural self-promotion in this country - presumably to lay the groundwork for future EU integration. The mammoth Turks exhibition at the Royal Academy in London is the main weapon, but Turkish cinema is doing its bit too.

Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Distant proved an art-cinema success last year, but the commercial end of the country's cinema is making a determined effort to cross over here as well - a considerably more difficult undertaking. A few weeks ago saw the UK release of Turkey's biggest-ever homegrown hit GORA - an expensively mounted but unrelentingly witless mishmash of sci-fi cliches - and here's another: an earnest, heartfelt family drama that, despite its two-hours-plus length, manages to remain reasonably watchable.

Lovelorn's central figure is Nazim (Sener Sen), a retired teacher returning to Istanbul after a lifetime of teaching in Kurdish primary schools. He's a member of the fiercely patriotic yet secular liberal generation whose values are increasingly under siege from Turkey's version of yuppiedom - represented here by his resentful children, Mehmet and Piraye. (They want him to sell his property and give them the money, but he can't face kicking out the poor family who rent it from him.)

Bored and lonely, Nazim takes to cab-driving, and finds a new focus for his affections on troubled single mother Dunya: a bar balladeer being stalked by her violent husband.
No prizes for guessing where the story goes, or for sitting through the "you were never there for me" scenes between Nazim and his kids - thereby proving that you don't have to come from Hollywood to whip up a frenzy of saccharine-tainted emotions. But Turgul's straightforward storytelling keeps things moving, and Sen is a quietly engaging performer at the heart of the matter.

Review | Crossing the Bridge

Crossing the Bridge -- The Sound of Istanbul
By Duane Byrge


Bottom line: Hip-hop trips on Arabesque in this cross-cultural musical mix but that old-fashioned Kurdish lament soars.

East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet is the refuted refrain of this musical exploration, namely the symbiosis of musical sounds in Istanbul, from eastern Anatolian to Western hip-hop.Scripted and directed by Fatih Akin ("Head-On"), this musical documentary likely will find its major audience in Germany, where the immigrant-minority Turk citizenry will take to its array of sounds, smears and social commentary as cultural nourishment.

Filmmaker Akin centers his musical exploration "Crossing the Bridge" around Alexander Hacke, a member of the German avant-garde group Einsturzende Neubauten. Ensconcing himself in Istanbul's Grand Hotel de Londres with a computer, Hacke embarks on recording the musical diversity of Istanbul, the Turkish city that is thought of as bridging the East and the West. Quite sagely, but almost disastrously, Hacke's musicological trip begins with a neo-psychedelic band, Baba Zula, whose influences run from Pink Floyd to Oriental strains. Unfortunately, the Baba Zula wawa is faux: It's a noxious mix of "flower power" with Arabian Nights kitsch -- marginally appealing to Europeans and anathema to Turks.

It's the worst kind of jam session, namely jamming together the asynchronous sounds of two vastly different traditions to create, well, an atonal mess. It's not until nearly the midpoint of this comprehensive film that "Bridge" finds its thematic voice and, ironically, when it contradicts itself with an emphasis on the musical purities of the separate traditions. Only when the multicultural conceit of vastly different musical traditions blending to produce a transcendent sound is muted does the film finally jell.

A musical high point, and the moment when the nonsensical notion of eliminating all differences within a multiethnic society is neatly decimated, is the rousing performance of Kurdish singer Aynur. Her glorious vocal lamentations of her oppressed people reverberates with a proud melancholy -- much richer and far more glorious than the forced mix of the modern musical movements.

Crossing the Bridge Bavaria Film International Producers: Fatih Akin, Klaus Maeck, Andreas Thiel, Sandra Harzer-Kux, Christian Kux Screenwriter-director: Fatih Akin Line producer: Tina Mersmann Director of photography: Herve Dieu Editor: Andrew Bird Sound: Johannes Grehl: Music and sound: Alexander Hacke Music Consultant: Klaus Maeck Cast: Alexander Hacke, Baba Zula, Orient Expressions, Duman, Replikas, Erkin Koray, Ceza,Sezen Aksu, Orhan Gencebay Running time -- 90 minutes

932_afis_4955

932_afis_4955, originally uploaded by eackman.