Kaplanoğlu’s film to hit French theaters in April
Turkish director Semih Kaplanoğlu's award-collecting film "Yumurta" (Egg) is scheduled to open in movie theaters in France on April 23.
Monday, March 03, 2008
Fog and Night | Sis ve Gece (2007) - Turgut Yasalar
Fog and the Night is the search of an investigator who has lost his confidence in his organization and whose happy"family father" order has been disrupted by his young lover.And introverted man due to his profession , not a big talker or well in expressing his feelings,Sedat is being consumed , going through the hardest time of his life , not able to silence his guilty conscience because he was unsuccessful in solving the murder of his partner , whom he saw a brother .His faith in his organization is shaken as he witness the schemes in machination inside the organization and between the organization and the state.Meanwhile , while trying to find his lover who has disappeared after falling for a former militant , he does not refrain from making use of the filthiest methods of his profession.
40th SIYAD Awards
SIYAD (Turkish Film Critics) 40. Anniversary Awards ceremony on March 03,2008 announced 2007 winners in the following categories.
YUMURTA (EGG)
Best Film: Yumurta/Egg
Best Director: Semih Kaplanoğlu (Yumurta/Egg)
Mahmut Tali Öngören Award for best screenplay: Semih Kaplanoğlu, Orçun Köksal (Yumurta/Egg)
Cahide Sonku Award for best fmale performance: Saadet Işıl Aksoy (Yumurta/Egg)
Best male performance: Nejat İşler (Yumurta/Egg)
Best supporting female performance: Derya Alabora (Adem'in Trenleri/Adam and the Devil )
Best supporting male performance: İlyas Salman (Sis ve Gece/Fog and Night)
Best Cinematography: Özgür Eken (Yumurta/Egg)
Best Musical Score: Zülfü Livaneli (Mutluluk/Bliss)
Best Art Direction: Naz Erayda (Yumurta/Egg)
Best Editing: Ayhan Ergürsel, Suzan Hande Güneri, Semih Kaplanoğlu (Yumurta/Egg)
YUMURTA (EGG)
Best Film: Yumurta/Egg
Best Director: Semih Kaplanoğlu (Yumurta/Egg)
Mahmut Tali Öngören Award for best screenplay: Semih Kaplanoğlu, Orçun Köksal (Yumurta/Egg)
Cahide Sonku Award for best fmale performance: Saadet Işıl Aksoy (Yumurta/Egg)
Best male performance: Nejat İşler (Yumurta/Egg)
Best supporting female performance: Derya Alabora (Adem'in Trenleri/Adam and the Devil )
Best supporting male performance: İlyas Salman (Sis ve Gece/Fog and Night)
Best Cinematography: Özgür Eken (Yumurta/Egg)
Best Musical Score: Zülfü Livaneli (Mutluluk/Bliss)
Best Art Direction: Naz Erayda (Yumurta/Egg)
Best Editing: Ayhan Ergürsel, Suzan Hande Güneri, Semih Kaplanoğlu (Yumurta/Egg)
Sunday, March 02, 2008
Review |Uneasy Ottomans
Read other reviews from NBC Films web site
Uneasy Ottomans
Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Climates takes the temperature of a failing marriage
By SCOTT FOUNDAS
Wednesday, November 8, 2006 - 7:00 pm
Turkish writer-director Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Climates is about the winds of change that blow through seasons and marriages. It begins with a woman, Bahar, perched atop a hillside in the Turkish resort town of Kas, while her husband, Isa, explores the ruins below. It is a beautiful day, and this vacation is long overdue, having been too many times postponed due to Bahar’s schedule as the art director on a television series and Isa’s as a university professor. Yet, as she watches him, slowly, almost imperceptibly she begins to cry inside. That night, they will quarrel during dinner with friends. (“Don’t worry, they enjoy seeing us miserable,” she assures him.) And before the vacation has ended, on a stretch of deserted beach that is like one of those paradisiacal oases that peek out from the pages of travel-agency brochures, he will suggest that they should try living apart for a while.
Climates is the fourth feature film by Ceylan, who won two major prizes at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival for the exquisite Distant, and like his others, it’s something of a family affair — only this time, instead of casting his relatives in the leading roles, Ceylan has cast himself and his real-life wife, Ebru, as Isa and Bahar. And if, in the hands of a lesser filmmaker, such a decision might foster a mood of lurid home-movie voyeurism, both Ceylans are such commanding and subtly expressive performers that any charges of nepotism here are as erroneous as in the storied collaborations of John Cassavetes and Gena Rowlands. This is also the first movie Ceylan has shot in high-definition video, which lends the images such startling clarity that it is possible to identify the individual beads of sweat that form on Bahar’s bosom as it bakes beneath the sweltering Kas sun. Yet the things Ceylan sees in sharpest relief lie beyond the reach of any digital camera.
I am talking about the hairline fissures that can form in even the most seemingly rock-solid relationship, and how such a relationship might end, without hysterics and by mutual agreement of both parties, for no reason other than that it has simply run its course. Such ideas are hardly fashionable for movies at a time when the Jennifer Aniston–Vince Vaughn The Break-Up is what passes as sophisticated grown-up entertainment, and I suspect that Climates will not be easy viewing for those who feel marooned in long-term partnerships, or maybe for any of us who have known the suddenness with which love can turn to revulsion. Of course, the same could be said of Bergman’s Scenes From a Marriage or Alan Parker’s Shoot the Moon or Woody Allen’s Husbands and Wives, and Climates merits a place alongside them in any inventory of the screen’s wise and disquieting portraits of marital collapse.
But there is something you will see in Climates that is not to be found in any of those other films. Back in Istanbul, some months after that day on the beach, Isa stands longingly outside the apartment of a former mistress (the fiery Nazan Kesal), whom he has just run into (with her current boyfriend) in a bookstore. After thinking about it for a while, she opens the door to him, and what follows can only be described as the most awkward and berserk and sensationally unrestrained movie sex scene since the ones in Last Tango in Paris — a clumsy ballet of ripped clothes and bodies slamming against furniture that shudders with violent passion and the sense of two lonely, desperate souls connecting out of some irrepressible, primal need.
Not long after that, Isa begins to think he may have behaved in haste, that perhaps he and Bahar should give things another go. So he travels to Ishakpasa, where she is working, and their reunion there, amid the flurries of midwinter, is something beyond words. The shades of disgust, longing, forgiveness and resignation that flash across both lovers’ faces are like the storm clouds that interrupt a placid spring day and then, just as quickly, disappear — the whole complex history of woman and man condensed into a few sublime seconds of screen time. With that come no easy answers or tidy resolutions, but as Bahar literally fades from our view and an airplane that may or may not be carrying Isa streaks across a brilliant sky, we’re filled with the melancholic reminder that, in life as in nature, each ending brings with it another new beginning.
CLIMATES | Written and directed by NURI BILGE CEYLAN | Produced by ZEYNEP ÖZBATUR | Released by Zeitgeist Films |
Uneasy Ottomans
Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Climates takes the temperature of a failing marriage
By SCOTT FOUNDAS
Wednesday, November 8, 2006 - 7:00 pm
Turkish writer-director Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Climates is about the winds of change that blow through seasons and marriages. It begins with a woman, Bahar, perched atop a hillside in the Turkish resort town of Kas, while her husband, Isa, explores the ruins below. It is a beautiful day, and this vacation is long overdue, having been too many times postponed due to Bahar’s schedule as the art director on a television series and Isa’s as a university professor. Yet, as she watches him, slowly, almost imperceptibly she begins to cry inside. That night, they will quarrel during dinner with friends. (“Don’t worry, they enjoy seeing us miserable,” she assures him.) And before the vacation has ended, on a stretch of deserted beach that is like one of those paradisiacal oases that peek out from the pages of travel-agency brochures, he will suggest that they should try living apart for a while.
Climates is the fourth feature film by Ceylan, who won two major prizes at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival for the exquisite Distant, and like his others, it’s something of a family affair — only this time, instead of casting his relatives in the leading roles, Ceylan has cast himself and his real-life wife, Ebru, as Isa and Bahar. And if, in the hands of a lesser filmmaker, such a decision might foster a mood of lurid home-movie voyeurism, both Ceylans are such commanding and subtly expressive performers that any charges of nepotism here are as erroneous as in the storied collaborations of John Cassavetes and Gena Rowlands. This is also the first movie Ceylan has shot in high-definition video, which lends the images such startling clarity that it is possible to identify the individual beads of sweat that form on Bahar’s bosom as it bakes beneath the sweltering Kas sun. Yet the things Ceylan sees in sharpest relief lie beyond the reach of any digital camera.
I am talking about the hairline fissures that can form in even the most seemingly rock-solid relationship, and how such a relationship might end, without hysterics and by mutual agreement of both parties, for no reason other than that it has simply run its course. Such ideas are hardly fashionable for movies at a time when the Jennifer Aniston–Vince Vaughn The Break-Up is what passes as sophisticated grown-up entertainment, and I suspect that Climates will not be easy viewing for those who feel marooned in long-term partnerships, or maybe for any of us who have known the suddenness with which love can turn to revulsion. Of course, the same could be said of Bergman’s Scenes From a Marriage or Alan Parker’s Shoot the Moon or Woody Allen’s Husbands and Wives, and Climates merits a place alongside them in any inventory of the screen’s wise and disquieting portraits of marital collapse.
But there is something you will see in Climates that is not to be found in any of those other films. Back in Istanbul, some months after that day on the beach, Isa stands longingly outside the apartment of a former mistress (the fiery Nazan Kesal), whom he has just run into (with her current boyfriend) in a bookstore. After thinking about it for a while, she opens the door to him, and what follows can only be described as the most awkward and berserk and sensationally unrestrained movie sex scene since the ones in Last Tango in Paris — a clumsy ballet of ripped clothes and bodies slamming against furniture that shudders with violent passion and the sense of two lonely, desperate souls connecting out of some irrepressible, primal need.
Not long after that, Isa begins to think he may have behaved in haste, that perhaps he and Bahar should give things another go. So he travels to Ishakpasa, where she is working, and their reunion there, amid the flurries of midwinter, is something beyond words. The shades of disgust, longing, forgiveness and resignation that flash across both lovers’ faces are like the storm clouds that interrupt a placid spring day and then, just as quickly, disappear — the whole complex history of woman and man condensed into a few sublime seconds of screen time. With that come no easy answers or tidy resolutions, but as Bahar literally fades from our view and an airplane that may or may not be carrying Isa streaks across a brilliant sky, we’re filled with the melancholic reminder that, in life as in nature, each ending brings with it another new beginning.
CLIMATES | Written and directed by NURI BILGE CEYLAN | Produced by ZEYNEP ÖZBATUR | Released by Zeitgeist Films |
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
SİYAD announces awards
Critics association announces awards
Turkish film producer Üstün Karabol will be this year's recipient of the Turkish Film Critics Association's (SİYAD) labor award alongside actors Kadir İnanır and Müjde Ar and filmmaker-scriptwriter Safa Önal, who will receive the association's honor awards, the association announced on Wednesday.
The SİYAD board of directors said in a statement that Karabol, the producer of such films as Serdar Akar's "Dar Alanda Kısa Paslaşmalar" (Offside) (2000) and Mustafa Altıoklar's "İstanbul Kanatlarımın Altında" (İstanbul Under My Wings) (1996), was deemed worthy of the labor award for "the efforts he spent in the development and promotion of the art of cinema in Turkey since the 1960s," and particularly for his "contributions in making European cinema enter wide release in Turkey." The association announced the nominees for its best film honor earlier this month, with the shortlist consisting of Semih Kaplanoğlu's poetic drama "Yumurta" (Egg), Abdullah Oğuz's screen adaptation of Zülfü Livaneli's novel "Mutluluk" (Bliss), Barış Pirhasan's "Adem'in Trenleri" (Adam and the Devil), Ömer Vargı's "Kabadayı" (Tough Guy) and Turgut Yasalar's "Sis ve Gece" (The Fog and the Night).
The 40th annual SİYAD Turkish Cinema Awards will be handed out at a ceremony at İstanbul's TİM Show Center on March 3.
Turkish film producer Üstün Karabol will be this year's recipient of the Turkish Film Critics Association's (SİYAD) labor award alongside actors Kadir İnanır and Müjde Ar and filmmaker-scriptwriter Safa Önal, who will receive the association's honor awards, the association announced on Wednesday.
The SİYAD board of directors said in a statement that Karabol, the producer of such films as Serdar Akar's "Dar Alanda Kısa Paslaşmalar" (Offside) (2000) and Mustafa Altıoklar's "İstanbul Kanatlarımın Altında" (İstanbul Under My Wings) (1996), was deemed worthy of the labor award for "the efforts he spent in the development and promotion of the art of cinema in Turkey since the 1960s," and particularly for his "contributions in making European cinema enter wide release in Turkey." The association announced the nominees for its best film honor earlier this month, with the shortlist consisting of Semih Kaplanoğlu's poetic drama "Yumurta" (Egg), Abdullah Oğuz's screen adaptation of Zülfü Livaneli's novel "Mutluluk" (Bliss), Barış Pirhasan's "Adem'in Trenleri" (Adam and the Devil), Ömer Vargı's "Kabadayı" (Tough Guy) and Turgut Yasalar's "Sis ve Gece" (The Fog and the Night).
The 40th annual SİYAD Turkish Cinema Awards will be handed out at a ceremony at İstanbul's TİM Show Center on March 3.
Saturday, February 02, 2008
IIFF 2008 | Juries shaping for istanbul
27th International Istanbul Film Festival program is beginning to take shape. The Festival is sponsored by Akbank and scheduled to take place between April 5-20, 2008. 7 of the films that will be featured in this year's program will also be competing for an Oscar at the 80th Annual Academy Awards.
International Competition Jury
National Competition Jury
Semih Kaplanoğlu Nurgül Yeşilçay Elif Şafak
- PRESIDENT: Semih Kaplanoğlu
- Nurgül Yeşilçay (Actress)
- Elif Şafak (Author)
- Michèle Maheux (Toronto Film Festival Director)
- Sylvain Auzou
Michele Maheux Sylvain Auzou INTERNATIONAL İSTANBUL FILM FESTIVAL
İstanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts
Istiklal Caddesi 64
Beyoğlu 34435 İstanbul
Phone: +90 212 334 07 00
Fax: +90 212 334 07 02
Rotterdam 2008 | Egg (Yumurta)
Egg (Yumurta) - TT (IFFR 2008)
Turkey, Greece 2007
Director Semih Kaplanoglu
Producer Semih Kaplanoglu, Lilette Botassi
Production company Kaplan Film Production, Inkas Film Production
Sales Coach 14
Print source Coach 14
Scenario Semih Kaplanoglu, Orçun Koksal
Cast Nejat Isler, Saadet Isil Aksoy, Ufuk Bayraktar, Tülin Özen, Gülçin Santircioglu, Kaan Karabacak, Semra Kaplanoglu
Photography Özgür Eken
Editor Ayhan Ergürsel, Semih Kaplanoglu, Suzan Hande Güneri
Art Design Naz Erayda
Sound Ismail Karadas
Length 97'
Website www.kaplanfilm.com
A poetic Turkish film in which a poet from Istanbul returns to his birthplace after the death of his mother and tries to find his roots. He manages thanks to a young woman. Part two of a trilogy-to-be by the talent Kaplanoglu (Part 1 was Angel's Fall, IFFR 2006).
Egg is the second part of a trilogy by the outstanding Turkish talent Semih Kaplanoglu (preceded by Angel's Fall and to be followed by Milk).
Yusuf (Nejat Isler), a book store owner and poet living in Istanbul, receives a phone call informing him that his mother has died. He returns to his hometown, after several year's absence, to arrange the funeral. In his family home he meets Ayla (Saadet Isil Aksoy), the young woman who spent the last years of his mother's life taking care of her. The poet notices the young woman's charm and is touched by it. Contact between the two is almost non-verbal, but there is a growing understanding between them. Ayla tells Yusuf about his mother's last wish. At first he hesitates to fulfil it, but later agrees and the two set off on a mission.
This film is a wonderful, sensitive, realistic and poetic return to one's past. It is also the journey of a city man back to his roots, his memories. It is a return to the world that for so many nowadays seems to have been forgotten - the world of simplicity, of a life that we once had. It is also a search for one's identity, for family ties. And within that, the ties to his mother. (LC)
Rotterdam 2008 | My Marlon and Brando (Gitmek)
My Marlon and Brando (Gitmek) - TT (IFFR 2008)
Turkey, Netherlands, United Kingdom 2008
Director Hüseyin Karabey
Producer Hüseyin Karabey, Lucinda Englehart, Frans van Gestel, Jeroen Beker
Production company A-si Film Yapim, Spier Films, IDTV FILM/Motel Films
Sales Insomnia World Sales
Print source Lucinda Englehart
Scenario Hüseyin Karabey, Ayca Damgaci
Cast Ayca Damgaci, Hama Ali Kahn, Nesrin Cavadzade, Emrah Ozdemir, Cengiz Bozkurt, Mahir Gunsiray
Photography Emre Tanyildiz
Editor Mary Stephen
Sound Mohammed Mokhtari
Music Kemal Sahir Gurel, Huseyin Yildiz, Erdal Guney
Length 92'
Website www.asifilm.com
Dramatic road movie based on a true story about a young theatre actress from Istanbul who wants to go to her lover. The problem is that he is Kurdish, is in northern Iraq and the American invasion of Iraq makes communication even more difficult. With the original video letters.
Ayça is a Turkish actress and she lives in Istanbul. On a film set in the West of Turkey, she meets Hama Ali, a Kurdish actor. The two fall in love while shooting a film. After the shoot, Ayça returns to Istanbul and Hama has to go back to his home, Süleymaniye in northern Iraq . Ayça and Hama continue their relationship on the telephone and via letters, while America prepares to attack Iraq. The post often doesn't work and the phone lines in Iraq are usually cut off. From time to time, Ayça receives a declaration of love from her lover on video. Ayça can no longer bear the distance between them and decides to travel to northern Iraq. But getting into a country at war turns out to be just as difficult as getting out.
The protagonists in the film are not actors who would quickly be cast for an average love story. My Marlon and Brando is a real story with and about real people. Ayça and Hama Ali are actors in their everyday lives, here they play themselves. In this way the film creates a tense balance between documentary and fiction. The love letters and video letters in the film are real, but Ayça is acting her own life. Result: a powerful and penetrating road movie in which a committed film maker approaches the world through a personal story.
Rotterdam 2008 | Brain Surgeon
Brain Surgeon - SH (IFFR 2008)
Turkey 2007
Director Ömer Ali Kazma
Producer Selen Korkut
Production company A Film
Sales A Film
Print source A Film
Photography Ömer Ali Kazma
Editor Ömer Ali Kazma
Sound Ömer Ali Kazma
Length 15'Part of the series 'Obstructions' about craftsmanship: brain surgery performed by a Turkish surgeon, a virtuoso at his job.
This film forms part of the series 'Obstructions' about human actions and skills; about maintenance, repair, production and creation. Here we follow the well-known Turkish brain surgeon Ali Zirh who performs a brain operation with incredible control on a patient who has become paralysed on the right side.
Rotterdam 2008 | Hidden Faces (Sakli yüzler)
Hidden Faces (Sakli yüzler) - TT (IFFR 2008)
Director Handan Ipekçi
Producer Handan Ipekçi
Production company Yeni Yapim Film, Tradewind Pictures GmbH, Bir Film Ithalat Ihracat Ticaret
Sales Bavaria Film International
Print source Bavaria Film International
Scenario Handan Ipekçi
Cast Senay Aydin, Istar Gökseven, Berk Hakman, Cem Bender, Nisa Yildirim, Füsun Demirel
Photography Feza Caldiran
Editor Handan Ipekçi
Art Design Deniz Özen, Esra Yildiz
Sound Nurkut Özdemir, Umut Senyol
Music Anima
Length 115'
Complex and intriguing Turkish drama about revenge killing. A young woman who went into hiding from her family talks about her life in a documentary. An uncle who sees the film in Germany won't let it rest .
There have been a few Turkish feature films (and books) dealing with the subject of crimes committed in order to ‘safeguard family honour’, the so-called honour killings, but few of them have been successful. Hidden Faces by Handan Ipekçi, known for her socially critical films, is one of the rare realistic dramas which, with respect for women, shows the true face of this problem.
The structure of the film is complex and intriguing. The story begins in a German cinema where a Turkish documentary Honor Killings - A Violation of Human Rights is showing. The audience distainfully watches the confessions of the young woman Zurhe. She loved a local shepherd in her village and had a child by him before he abandoned her. To restore the family’s honour, Zurhe’s uncle, Ali, forces her 17-year-old brother Ismail to strangle the baby in front of her eyes. Her father kills himself instead of killing his daughter. When an enlightened uncle from Germany comes to take her with him, he too is killed by the family males. The bloodshed is blamed on the underaged Ismail, who is only given a five-year sentence. All these facts are revealed in flashbacks and the documentary film director plays the dangerous game of wanting to find Zhurhe, who is now living under a different identity. Her uncle Ali sees the documentary and is determined to finish the job he began several years earlier. (LC)
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Article | "Gitmek" (My Marlon and Brando)
Hüseyin Karabey, Turkey’s pride at Rotterdam film festival
Turkish filmmaker Hüseyin Karabey poses for a photograph at the Rotterdam Film Festival, where his film “Gitmek” is being screened.
It is another frightfully cold and windy day as I head to meet with director Hüseyin Karabey during the International Rotterdam Film Festival.
His first feature film, "Gitmek" (My Marlon and Brando), just had its world premiere the night before -- and obviously it went quite well, as Karabey greets me with a relieved expression and a warm smile. As for me, not only am I excited to talk with the man who has shot this wonderful film but I am also more than happy to finally talk with a compatriot in this crazy jamboree. We are among the handful of Turks attending one of the most world's most popular festivals for film professionals in the world.
"Gitmek" is one of the best films I have seen that has come out of Turkey in recent years. It is simple, yet profound; meticulously shot, but with the right amount of documentary feel; it has a captivating female lead and, even more important, it is genuine. On a film set in Anatolia, actress Ayça (played by Ayça Damgacı) meets Hama Ali (Hama Ali Khan -- who happens to be a Kurdish actor). Ayça and Hama Ali fall in love, but Ayça lives in İstanbul and Hama Ali in Sulaimaniya, Iraq. In the following months, they communicate over the telephone and with letters and, once in a while, Hama Ali sends Ayça tender yet passionate video diaries. However, the year is 2003 and eventually the US declares war on Iraq. In this time of chaos how will they ever see each other? The strong-minded Ayça wants nothing more than to unite with her beloved. She decides to embark on a journey from İstanbul to Sulaimaniya via southeastern Turkey, Iran and eventually Iraq. Thus her real adventure and introspection begins. This is the story of a real woman in a real world and one has to congratulate Karabey for his determination in making this film.
Reversing standards
Coming from a Kurdish family himself, Karabey ended up studying in İstanbul. He is better known for his documentaries. When I ask him how his journey toward fiction started he replies: "Well, I always saw cinema as a whole and never really differentiated between documentary and fiction. When I saw what was broadcasted on television I realized that the media never showed what was really going on in the country or the world. What I saw on the screen was not what I or the people I knew were experiencing. I wanted to change that and make something that told the story of ordinary folks like us and not far-fetched characters living in a bubble."
Indeed Karabey has achieved his aspirations, as the delightful Ayça Damagacı, whom the film's story is also based on, is not the picture-perfect damsel in distress. Ayça is chubby, not the smartest person in the world and, furthermore, she is a woman -- thank God, someone finally realized that strong female characters could lead a story in Turkish cinema!
As we continue our conversation Karabey further comments, "Besides the lead being a woman, another 'standard' we wanted to reverse was the concept of going to the East instead of the West in the search for happiness. Ayça's quest is not as such and her heart lies in the East -- in the middle of a war. As we watch her travel through Diyarbakır, Van and even Iran, we realize that the people residing in these places, which we have misconceptions about, also have lives and maintain wonderful traditions and practices that enhance their joy de vivre." I notice that Karabey always uses the word "us" when he is talking about the making of his film. To him "Gitmek" is the collaborative effort of his crew and I admire his sense of camaraderie.
The production story of the film is even more interesting. One of the few directors to hold the complete rights to his films, Karabey gathered a significant amount of his funding from abroad -- namely the Hubert Bals Fund of the Rotterdam Film Festival, where he is currently being hosted. He was also supported by the Turkish Ministry of Culture and, later on, he formed a co-production team with producers from the Netherlands and the UK. Karabey states: "As you know, the production of independent films is quite difficult in Turkey. However, if I managed to make this film, this means that I can form an example and shed a light for younger filmmakers who want to do something that is not the usual mainstream [material]."
"Gitmek" will open in Turkish theaters at the end of April. I recommend this film to anyone who enjoys good cinema. I am already looking forward to Karabey's next film.
30.01.2008
EMİNE YILDIRIM ROTTERDAM
Turkish filmmaker Hüseyin Karabey poses for a photograph at the Rotterdam Film Festival, where his film “Gitmek” is being screened.
It is another frightfully cold and windy day as I head to meet with director Hüseyin Karabey during the International Rotterdam Film Festival.
His first feature film, "Gitmek" (My Marlon and Brando), just had its world premiere the night before -- and obviously it went quite well, as Karabey greets me with a relieved expression and a warm smile. As for me, not only am I excited to talk with the man who has shot this wonderful film but I am also more than happy to finally talk with a compatriot in this crazy jamboree. We are among the handful of Turks attending one of the most world's most popular festivals for film professionals in the world.
"Gitmek" is one of the best films I have seen that has come out of Turkey in recent years. It is simple, yet profound; meticulously shot, but with the right amount of documentary feel; it has a captivating female lead and, even more important, it is genuine. On a film set in Anatolia, actress Ayça (played by Ayça Damgacı) meets Hama Ali (Hama Ali Khan -- who happens to be a Kurdish actor). Ayça and Hama Ali fall in love, but Ayça lives in İstanbul and Hama Ali in Sulaimaniya, Iraq. In the following months, they communicate over the telephone and with letters and, once in a while, Hama Ali sends Ayça tender yet passionate video diaries. However, the year is 2003 and eventually the US declares war on Iraq. In this time of chaos how will they ever see each other? The strong-minded Ayça wants nothing more than to unite with her beloved. She decides to embark on a journey from İstanbul to Sulaimaniya via southeastern Turkey, Iran and eventually Iraq. Thus her real adventure and introspection begins. This is the story of a real woman in a real world and one has to congratulate Karabey for his determination in making this film.
Reversing standards
Coming from a Kurdish family himself, Karabey ended up studying in İstanbul. He is better known for his documentaries. When I ask him how his journey toward fiction started he replies: "Well, I always saw cinema as a whole and never really differentiated between documentary and fiction. When I saw what was broadcasted on television I realized that the media never showed what was really going on in the country or the world. What I saw on the screen was not what I or the people I knew were experiencing. I wanted to change that and make something that told the story of ordinary folks like us and not far-fetched characters living in a bubble."
Indeed Karabey has achieved his aspirations, as the delightful Ayça Damagacı, whom the film's story is also based on, is not the picture-perfect damsel in distress. Ayça is chubby, not the smartest person in the world and, furthermore, she is a woman -- thank God, someone finally realized that strong female characters could lead a story in Turkish cinema!
As we continue our conversation Karabey further comments, "Besides the lead being a woman, another 'standard' we wanted to reverse was the concept of going to the East instead of the West in the search for happiness. Ayça's quest is not as such and her heart lies in the East -- in the middle of a war. As we watch her travel through Diyarbakır, Van and even Iran, we realize that the people residing in these places, which we have misconceptions about, also have lives and maintain wonderful traditions and practices that enhance their joy de vivre." I notice that Karabey always uses the word "us" when he is talking about the making of his film. To him "Gitmek" is the collaborative effort of his crew and I admire his sense of camaraderie.
The production story of the film is even more interesting. One of the few directors to hold the complete rights to his films, Karabey gathered a significant amount of his funding from abroad -- namely the Hubert Bals Fund of the Rotterdam Film Festival, where he is currently being hosted. He was also supported by the Turkish Ministry of Culture and, later on, he formed a co-production team with producers from the Netherlands and the UK. Karabey states: "As you know, the production of independent films is quite difficult in Turkey. However, if I managed to make this film, this means that I can form an example and shed a light for younger filmmakers who want to do something that is not the usual mainstream [material]."
"Gitmek" will open in Turkish theaters at the end of April. I recommend this film to anyone who enjoys good cinema. I am already looking forward to Karabey's next film.
30.01.2008
EMİNE YILDIRIM ROTTERDAM
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Real Mavi Boncuk |Ertem Egilmez film
.jpg)
Mavi boncuk (1974)
Directed by Ertem Egilmez
Writing credits: Zeki Alasya, Ertem Egilmez, Sadik Sendil
Cast (in credits order)
Emel Sayin as herself
Tarik Akan ... Yakisikli(handsome0
Zeki Alasya ... Seker Kamil
Metin Akpinar ... Süleyman
Halit Akçatepe ... Mistik
Münir Özkul ... Baba Yasar
Kemal Sunal ... Cafer
Adile Nasit
Perran Kutman ... Maid
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
part 9
Profile | Çağan Irmak
Çağan Irmak was born in Izmir in 1970. He graduated from Aegean University, School of Press and Broadcasting from the department of Radio-TV. He has been awarded the "Sedat Simavi" prize for his short films "Fairy-Tale" and "Victim", which were shot during his time at university. In 1992 he started working in the movie industry as an assistant director to various acclaimed directors. A few of these directors are as following: Orhan Oğuz, Mahinur Ergun, Filiz Kaynak and Yusuf Kurçenli. His short film "Play Me Old and Wise", which he both wrote and directed himself, was awarded the first runner up prize at IFSAK (Istanbul Photography and Cinema Association) in 1998 and then went on to be screened at the London Film Festival.
After his extensive experience as an assistant director, Irmak started to work as a director in television and quickly made a name for himself with his original style of storytelling and his technical expertise. He eventually became a household name with two projects; ‘Asmalı Konak’(2002), which was also shown on Greek television, and ‘Çemberimde Gül Oya’(2004), which was a project that he had written himself and had managed to shed light on a specific period of political history bringing a wide range of audiences together despite their generational gaps.
His first feature film "Wish Me Luck" was produced in 2001. In 2004 his second feature film which he had both written and directed, "All About Mustafa", was highly acclaimed by film critics. In 2005 his third feature film, which he again had both written and directed, "My Father and Son" was awarded the "Best Director", "Best Screenplay" and "Best Picture" prizes by the Turkish Film Critics’ Association.
Short Films
Play Me Old and Wise (1998)
Features
Wish Me Luck (2001)
All About Mustafa (2003)
My Father and Son (2005)
The Messenger (2007)
"ALL ABOUT MUSTAFA" LIST OF AWARDS:
41st GOLDEN ORANGE AWARDS
Behlul Dal Jury Special Prize
Best Song Award
26th TURKISH FILM CRITICS’ ASSOCIATION AWARDS
Best Supporting Actress
Serif Sezer
"MY FATHER AND SON" LIST OF AWARDS:
13th CASOD (Contemporary Movie Actors Society) "Best Actor" Awards, 2006
Jury Special Prize
Yetkin Dikinciler
Best Leading Actor
Çetin Tekindor
25th Istanbul Film Festival, 2006
Best Leading Actor
Fikret Kuşkan
Best Leading Actress
Şerif Sezer
People's Choice Award
Çağan Irmak
11th Nurnberg Turkish/German Film Festival, 2006
People's Choice Award
Çağan Irmak
11th Sadri Alisik Awards, 2006
Best Supporting Actress
Özge Özberk
27th SIYAD (Association of Movie Critics) Turkish Film Awards, 2006
Best Leading Actor
Çetin Tekindor
Best Picture
Çağan Irmak
Best Director
Çağan Irmak
Best Supporting Actress
Şerif Sezer
Best Leading Actress
Hümeyra
Best Screenplay
Çağan Irmak
2008 | Ulak / messenger by Çağan Irmak
official web site of Ulak/messenger
Çağan Irmak’s long-awaited ‘Messenger’ finally hits the road
Director Çağan Irmak’s latest film “Ulak,” which opened this week in theaters across Turkey, follows Zekeriya, who travels from village to village to tell children stories about İbrahim, a “messenger.”
Finally, after all the curiosity we've experienced about what kind of film young Turkish director Çağan Irmak would give us following his successful "Babam ve Oğlum" (My Father and My Son), we receive news that his new "Ulak" (Messenger) has hit the silver screen.
Despite the fact that making films with only small breaks in between brings with it some obvious difficulties, after watching "Ulak," it was clear that director Irmak has not been spinning his wheels in this brief period between films.
It is completely normal that when people think of Irmak these days, the first thing to come to mind is his box office hit "Babam ve Oğlum." Almost all agree it was a film not easily forgotten. To those who thought this young director would continue on his path with similar styles, Irmak, with "Ulak," has begun to say something completely different to his audience. "Ulak" is the kind of film which, as you watch it, you'll start looking inside. It is as though, from the very beginning of the film to the end, you are wandering around in a fairy tale. But not just as an observer and a listener, rather, as though you are interacting with everything. It is a film that makes viewers ask themselves "is this real, or just a story?" over and over again, starting off somewhat like one of the stories your grandmothers and grandfathers might have told you when you were young. But as the film goes on, following the courier's specific tale, everything changes color suddenly. The screenplay for "Ulak," which has been well hidden until now, brings forth with it echoes of words we used to hear from our uncle, the storyteller: "Like all good tales, our story today begins with the name of our Creator..."
The person who we enter into this journey with is none other than Zekeriya, the traveler. Everywhere he goes Zekeriya gathers all the children around him to tell them stories about İbrahim, a "courier" or "messenger." (This is where the film gets its title from.) Zekeriya's goal is that everyone should know the stories connected with this enigma of a messenger. But this old man is no ordinary storyteller. When he tells his tales, he wants to enliven every aspect of the minds of the children he is talking to -- to the point that, no matter whether good or bad, his tales become unforgettable. And this "Messenger İbrahim" is in fact a symbol of courage. He is someone who can elicit the untapped sense of action just sitting and waiting in some people. Maybe he is an idol smasher or maybe a revolutionary. Whatever İbrahim is, as Zekeriya tells his stories, the pain in his own heart becomes lighter. But it is in the final village that Zekeriya stops in that the color of the story starts to change a bit. This village is a spot that seems literally damned, as though the sins surrounding it have washed over it wave after wave. Those listening to Zekeriya's stories here begin to believe that "Messenger İbrahim" will definitely one day come there and that, as such, there will be no more hidden sins in this village.
Perhaps Irmak is trying to tell a story from centuries of years ago with this film. Or perhaps this is a story from these days. But whatever the time frame, the message contained in the story is applicable to yesterday, today and even tomorrow. Maybe the film is an attempt to reach tomorrow using the language of yesterday. In any case, the actors are different but the roles are the same. The director underscores the necessity of people like İbrahim in today's world, with all its vulgarities. As we mentioned from the start, "Ulak" is not a film that can be compared to "Babam ve Oğlum." Some moviegoers might be disappointed by this, but for those interested in what Irmak has to say, it is still a film worth seeing. While cinematographer Mirsad Herovic captures scenes as beautifully as he did in "Babam and Oğlum," Evanthia Reboutsika's musical score adds incredible sounds and action to the visuals. Hümeyra, Şerif Sezer and Yetkin Dikinciler, as well as all the younger stars of this film, deliver great performances while Çetin Tekindor in the role of Zekeriya is quite unforgettable.
26.01.2008
FATİH SELVİ
Friday, January 25, 2008
Four Turkish titles at Rotterdam film festival
Four Turkish films, including Semih Kaplanoğlu's award-winning "Yumurta" (Egg) and Handan İpekçi's honor killing drama "Saklı Yüzler" (Hidden Faces), are featured in the Netherlands' International Rotterdam Film Festival, which marks its 37th edition Jan. 23-Feb. 3.
The 12-day festival, which kicked off Wednesday with the world premiere of Argentinean filmmaker Lucía Cedrón's debut feature "Cordero de Dios" (Lamb of God), will screen hundreds of independent productions from across the world.
Among Turkish titles lined up in the festival program is "Brain Surgeon," a short film by Ömer Ali Kazma, featured in the "Shorts: As Long as It Takes" section. The 15-minute film, part of the series "Obstructions," which centers on craftsmanship, details a brain surgery operation performed by Ali Zirh, a Turkish surgeon.
Another Turkish film in the lineup is "Gitmek" (My Marlon and Brando) by Hüseyin Karabey. The Turkish-Dutch-UK joint production, a dramatic road movie, is featured in the festival's "Time and Tide" category, in which "Egg" and "Hidden Faces" are also featured.
"My Marlon and Brando" is based on a true story about a young stage actress from İstanbul who wants to go to her lover. The only problem is that her lover is Kurdish, is in northern Iraq and the American invasion of Iraq makes communication even more difficult for the couple. The protagonists in the movie -- Ayça and Hama Ali -- are actors in their real lives, and in the movie they play themselves.
The Rotterdam Film Festival, under the direction of Rutger Wolfson, this year selected "Free Radicals" as its theme, referring to independent-minded filmmakers who often draw fierce reactions, drawing inspiration from the chemistry term that stands for "special atoms or molecules that can function as links in processes and catalysts of change."
The 12-day festival, which kicked off Wednesday with the world premiere of Argentinean filmmaker Lucía Cedrón's debut feature "Cordero de Dios" (Lamb of God), will screen hundreds of independent productions from across the world.
Among Turkish titles lined up in the festival program is "Brain Surgeon," a short film by Ömer Ali Kazma, featured in the "Shorts: As Long as It Takes" section. The 15-minute film, part of the series "Obstructions," which centers on craftsmanship, details a brain surgery operation performed by Ali Zirh, a Turkish surgeon.
Another Turkish film in the lineup is "Gitmek" (My Marlon and Brando) by Hüseyin Karabey. The Turkish-Dutch-UK joint production, a dramatic road movie, is featured in the festival's "Time and Tide" category, in which "Egg" and "Hidden Faces" are also featured.
"My Marlon and Brando" is based on a true story about a young stage actress from İstanbul who wants to go to her lover. The only problem is that her lover is Kurdish, is in northern Iraq and the American invasion of Iraq makes communication even more difficult for the couple. The protagonists in the movie -- Ayça and Hama Ali -- are actors in their real lives, and in the movie they play themselves.
The Rotterdam Film Festival, under the direction of Rutger Wolfson, this year selected "Free Radicals" as its theme, referring to independent-minded filmmakers who often draw fierce reactions, drawing inspiration from the chemistry term that stands for "special atoms or molecules that can function as links in processes and catalysts of change."
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Profile | Fatih Akin
Fatih Akin was born in 1973 in Hamburg and began studying Visual Communications at Hamburg's College of Fine Arts in 1994. In 1995, he wrote and directed his first short feature, Sensin - You're The One! (Sensin - Du bist es!), which received the Audience Award at the Hamburg International Short Film Festival, followed by Weed (Getuerkt, 1996). His first full length feature film, Short Sharp Shock (Kurz und schmerzlos, 1998), won the Bronze Leopard at Locarno and the Bavarian Film Award (Best Young Director) in 1998. His other films include: In July (Im Juli, 2000), Wir haben vergessen zurueckzukehren (2001), Solino (2002), the Berlinale Golden Bear-winner and winner of the German and European Film Awards Head-On (Gegen die Wand, 2003), Crossing the Bridge - The Sound of Istanbul (2005), and The Edge of Heaven (Auf der anderen Seite, 2007).
2008 | Chico by Özgür Yildirim
The latest corazón-production CHIKO, a first feature film by Özgür
Yildirim, will be premiered at the Berlinale 08 in the Panorama section
Chico Germany 2007/2008, Feature Film
Credits
Director Özgür Yildirim
Screenplay Özgür Yildirim
Director of photography Matthias Bolliger
Cast :
Denis Moschitto Chiko
Moritz Bleibtreu Brownie
Volker Özcan Tibet
Philipp Baltus Scholle
Jelica Batarilo Schwester Jessica
Fahri Ögün Yardim Curly
Production company:Corazón International GmbH & Co. KG (Hamburg)
Producer Fatih Akin; Klaus Maeck
Özgür Yildirim
born 1979 Hamburg
2007/2008 Chiko
Screenplay,Director
2004 Alim Market
Director
2003 Der nötige Schneid/Under the Knife
Director
Yildirim, will be premiered at the Berlinale 08 in the Panorama section
Chico Germany 2007/2008, Feature Film
Credits
Director Özgür Yildirim
Screenplay Özgür Yildirim
Director of photography Matthias Bolliger
Cast :
Denis Moschitto Chiko
Moritz Bleibtreu Brownie
Volker Özcan Tibet
Philipp Baltus Scholle
Jelica Batarilo Schwester Jessica
Fahri Ögün Yardim Curly
Production company:Corazón International GmbH & Co. KG (Hamburg)
Producer Fatih Akin; Klaus Maeck
Özgür Yildirim
born 1979 Hamburg
2007/2008 Chiko
Screenplay,Director
2004 Alim Market
Director
2003 Der nötige Schneid/Under the Knife
Director
Article | Fatih Akin's projects cross borders
Fatih Akin's projects cross borders
German-Turk has two films in the Oscar race
The Teuton-Turkish multitasking multihyphenate has two films in the race for a best foreign language Oscar nomination -- Germany's "Edge of Heaven," which he helmed, and Turkey's "Takva" which he co-produced. But he's also got a slew of other projects under way, not all of them as a producer or director.
While he's busy helming "Garbage in the Garden of Eden," a years-in-the-making doc about the impact of the Turkish government's policy of using an idyllic Turkish village as a landfill site, he's also collaborating with Martin Scorsese at the World Cinema Foundation, a nonprofit org dedicated to restoring lost world cinema treasures.
Akin's Hamburg-based shingle Corazon is also hard at work on developing a number of the helmer's own projects -- including a proposed biopic of legendary Kurdish filmmaker Yilmaz Guney (who won the 1982 Palm d'Or for "Yol" before dying of cancer in 1984) and the final part of Akin's proposed "Love, Death and the Devil" trilogy -- as well as boosting film industry ties between Germany and Turkey.
The globetrotting exploits of the 34-year-old Hamburg-born son of Turkish immigrants, who won the 2004 Golden Bear at Berlin for "Head-On," are reflected in his work. "Edge of Heaven," which won screenplay awards at this year's Cannes fest and European Film Awards, travels between Germany and Turkey with its meditations of East-West miscommunication and the fractured intersecting lives of a group of ordinary Germans and Turks drawn together by extraordinary events.
Akin has taken an innovative approach to tubthumping the pic in Germany.
"I've toured all over Germany with the film, not just in the big cinemas but in the tiny villages, too," he says. "For a long time, there was this idea that to be a German citizen you had to have German blood. This is a very old-fashioned idea. I am a Turkish-German filmmaker, which means I am a bastard of two cinemas."
Akin's decision to embark on a grassroots campaign to drum up support for his pic may be one of the reasons why Teuton auds have taken the pic -- as much Turkish as it is German -- to their hearts.
As the poster-boy for European multiculturalism, the wunderkind is doing more than most in the film biz to rep a positive face for Turkey as the country's discussions to join the European Union inch ahead amid criticism from some quarters in the West over the nation's human rights record.
"I wanted to add an extra dimension and perspective to how the media have presented Turkey joining the European Union, as I feel that their view can be at times limited," he says.
But he acknowledges the challenges Turkey is facing. The internal battle over the future of the country between the secular traditionalists -- who founded modern-day Turkey in 1923 under the leadership of Kemal Ataturk -- and the current ruling AK party -- whose leaders are devout Muslims -- has been overshadowed by a rise in anti-Kurdish nationalism. The Turkish military's air strikes in December against suspected Kurdish rebel bases in northern Iraq, in retaliation for a series of attacks this year against Turkish targets, threatens to further destabilize a region already reeling from violence.
The situation in Turkey has brought up an ironic, and unwanted, comparison with a dark chapter in the history of Akin's adopted home. "It's like Germany in 1935. This buildup creates anger against Kurdish people," Akin says. "Kurdish people are getting hit in the street, getting their windows smashed. Cinema is a reflection of society, and what I like about Turkish films right now is their dialogue is forcing audiences to deal with these issues."
One such film is "Takva."
Akin's involvement with "Takva," about a devout Muslim living in Istanbul who finds his faith devastatingly tested when he takes on a job as a rent collector for his local imam, was crucial to the film getting made. With a modest budget of $1.6 million, the Turkish side had managed to raise 80% of the financing. It was the friendship between Onder Cakar, who penned the screenplay, and Akin that led to the all-important final coin arriving from funding body Eurimages as well as the Hamburg Film Fund via Akin's shingle Corazon.
The expansion from auterism -- Akin writes and directs all his own projects -- into producing is a longterm shift for the breathless maven. "I love the fact that with producing I can protect my own work. That's why I became a producer," Akin says. "As a filmmaker, you have a story to tell, but maybe one day I won't have anything more to say. At least I'll still have producing left as an option. It's like gambling. You put money in a slot machine and suddenly you have a project."
Spiegel Interview with Fatih Akin
September 28, 2007
Interview conducted by Lars-Olav Beier and Matthias Matussek
SPIEGEL INTERVIEW WITH DIRECTOR FATIH AKIN
From Istanbul to New York
German director Fatih Akin, who shot to fame with his 2004 hit "Head-On," talks about Turkish-German filmmaking, his fondness for Istanbul and how his new film, "The Edge of Heaven," only worked when he introduced a lesbian love affair to the plot.
SPIEGEL: Fatih Akin, you have been compared with (legendary German film director) Rainer Werner Fassbinder for your new film, "The Edge of Heaven," which won the prize for best screenplay at the Cannes Film Festival and is now rumored to be an Oscar contender. Are you pleased?
Akin: The comparisons with Fassbinder have followed me around since my first film, "Short Sharp Shock." Critics said that the character Gabriel, who emerges from prison determined never to return to crime, reminded them of Franz Biberkopf in Fassbinder's "Berlin Alexanderplatz." It's funny, because I hadn't even seen the film at the time. I admire Fassbinder, but he and I work in very different ways.
SPIEGEL: How so?
Akin: (German actress) Hanna Schygulla once told me that Fassbinder forced his actors never to deviate from the script. But in my films everyone can do as he or she wishes. I like it when actors depart from the script to find their characters. Of course, that's also why it takes me three years to make a movie. Fassbinder would have been able to turn out 10 films in that amount of time.
SPIEGEL: In 1973, when Fassbinder shot his melodrama "Ali: Fear Eats the Soul," about a love affair between a Moroccan immigrant and a German cleaning woman, some in Germany were still referring to Turks as "foreign workers."
Akin: And SPIEGEL wrote at the time: "The Turks are coming -- save yourself if you can." I know, because I've researched it. It was in July 1973. I was born in Hamburg one month later.
SPIEGEL: And now you're here.
Akin: Exactly. And today we no longer tell our stories from the margins, but from the center of society.
SPIEGEL: And yet "The Edge of Heaven" describes, just as your film "Head-On" did, migration in exactly the opposite direction. Your characters leave Germany to go to Turkey. A Turkish-German professor of German Studies and a German student travel to Istanbul, for example.
Akin: Sure, why not? I feel incredibly comfortable here, and I also feel that it's my home. If the characters returned to Germany, perhaps the ending would be neater. But I like open endings.
SPIEGEL: Your characters are repeatedly drawn to Istanbul. Is it a city that you have a longing for?
Akin: That comes from my childhood, when my entire family made the trek by car down to Turkey. The trip took three or four days. When we arrived in Istanbul, I felt like I had traveled halfway around the earth and had landed in a completely different world. Nowadays Istanbul is much closer, and so it's no longer a place I miss so much. But it is a city where everything is constantly in motion.
SPIEGEL: Do you see yourself as a role model of Turkish emancipation?
Akin: No, although I do like the fact that people in Turkey are proud of me. On the other hand, I haven't done anything yet that portrays Turkey in a bad light. I haven't burned any bridges the way (Turkish author and Nobel Prize winner) Orhan Pamuk did. Maybe it'll happen someday, or perhaps Turkey will change enough so that burning bridges is no longer possible.
SPIEGEL: But is it possible that you actually portray Turkey in too positive a light? For example, you depict a women's prison with brightly lit, spacious group cells and inmates enjoying a game of volleyball in the prison yard.
Akin: We did a lot of research in Turkish prisons. I was keenly aware of the fact that I couldn't afford any inaccuracies. I wanted my work to be unassailable, and for that reason I had many conversations with friends of mine who were in fact imprisoned in Turkey for political reasons. We ended up shooting the scene in a prison in Istanbul for people being held on remand. What you see in the film are real prisoners and real guards. We didn't try to make Turkey more attractive than it is.
SPIEGEL: Does Turkey demand different images from you than Germany does?
Akin: Absolutely. I shot many scenes of Hamburg, albums full of postcard motifs, and I discarded almost all of them. I ride my bike through Hamburg every day. I go shopping here, I go to the doctor -- and yet I no longer have the eye for telling stories about this damn city, even though I love it. But in Turkey I have the feeling that I'm seeing everything with different eyes.
SPIEGEL: In "The Edge of Heaven," you tell the story of a lesbian love affair between a German and a Turkish woman. How did your parents feel about it?
Akin: Oh, they know what sort of a son they have by now. Why two women? Because everything else felt like a cliché. A young, dark-haired Turk comes to Hamburg, where he falls in love with an innocent blonde? No, that's too much like King Kong and the white woman. The story only became sexy once two women were involved.
SPIEGEL: Do you plan to tell a German-Turkish story again in your next film?
Akin: No, all roads lead to America. I'm planning a film about European immigrants who went to the United States in the early 20th century. We want to reconstruct Ellis Island in (the Potsdam film studio) Babelsberg. But after New York we'll be going to the Southwest. There will even be Indians. It'll be my first Western.
ABOUT FATIH AKIN
Fatih Akin is a German film director of Turkish descent. He was born in Hamburg in 1973 and studied visual communications at the city's College of Fine Arts. He made his first film, "Short Sharp Shock," in 1998 and won the Golden Bear award at the Berlin Film Festival with his 2004 film "Head- On," which brought him to the attention of international audiences. His latest film, "The Edge of Heaven," won the Best Screenplay Award at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival.
Interview conducted by Lars-Olav Beier and Matthias Matussek
SPIEGEL INTERVIEW WITH DIRECTOR FATIH AKIN
From Istanbul to New York
German director Fatih Akin, who shot to fame with his 2004 hit "Head-On," talks about Turkish-German filmmaking, his fondness for Istanbul and how his new film, "The Edge of Heaven," only worked when he introduced a lesbian love affair to the plot.
SPIEGEL: Fatih Akin, you have been compared with (legendary German film director) Rainer Werner Fassbinder for your new film, "The Edge of Heaven," which won the prize for best screenplay at the Cannes Film Festival and is now rumored to be an Oscar contender. Are you pleased?
Akin: The comparisons with Fassbinder have followed me around since my first film, "Short Sharp Shock." Critics said that the character Gabriel, who emerges from prison determined never to return to crime, reminded them of Franz Biberkopf in Fassbinder's "Berlin Alexanderplatz." It's funny, because I hadn't even seen the film at the time. I admire Fassbinder, but he and I work in very different ways.
SPIEGEL: How so?
Akin: (German actress) Hanna Schygulla once told me that Fassbinder forced his actors never to deviate from the script. But in my films everyone can do as he or she wishes. I like it when actors depart from the script to find their characters. Of course, that's also why it takes me three years to make a movie. Fassbinder would have been able to turn out 10 films in that amount of time.
SPIEGEL: In 1973, when Fassbinder shot his melodrama "Ali: Fear Eats the Soul," about a love affair between a Moroccan immigrant and a German cleaning woman, some in Germany were still referring to Turks as "foreign workers."
Akin: And SPIEGEL wrote at the time: "The Turks are coming -- save yourself if you can." I know, because I've researched it. It was in July 1973. I was born in Hamburg one month later.
SPIEGEL: And now you're here.
Akin: Exactly. And today we no longer tell our stories from the margins, but from the center of society.
SPIEGEL: And yet "The Edge of Heaven" describes, just as your film "Head-On" did, migration in exactly the opposite direction. Your characters leave Germany to go to Turkey. A Turkish-German professor of German Studies and a German student travel to Istanbul, for example.
Akin: Sure, why not? I feel incredibly comfortable here, and I also feel that it's my home. If the characters returned to Germany, perhaps the ending would be neater. But I like open endings.
SPIEGEL: Your characters are repeatedly drawn to Istanbul. Is it a city that you have a longing for?
Akin: That comes from my childhood, when my entire family made the trek by car down to Turkey. The trip took three or four days. When we arrived in Istanbul, I felt like I had traveled halfway around the earth and had landed in a completely different world. Nowadays Istanbul is much closer, and so it's no longer a place I miss so much. But it is a city where everything is constantly in motion.
SPIEGEL: Do you see yourself as a role model of Turkish emancipation?
Akin: No, although I do like the fact that people in Turkey are proud of me. On the other hand, I haven't done anything yet that portrays Turkey in a bad light. I haven't burned any bridges the way (Turkish author and Nobel Prize winner) Orhan Pamuk did. Maybe it'll happen someday, or perhaps Turkey will change enough so that burning bridges is no longer possible.
SPIEGEL: But is it possible that you actually portray Turkey in too positive a light? For example, you depict a women's prison with brightly lit, spacious group cells and inmates enjoying a game of volleyball in the prison yard.
Akin: We did a lot of research in Turkish prisons. I was keenly aware of the fact that I couldn't afford any inaccuracies. I wanted my work to be unassailable, and for that reason I had many conversations with friends of mine who were in fact imprisoned in Turkey for political reasons. We ended up shooting the scene in a prison in Istanbul for people being held on remand. What you see in the film are real prisoners and real guards. We didn't try to make Turkey more attractive than it is.
SPIEGEL: Does Turkey demand different images from you than Germany does?
Akin: Absolutely. I shot many scenes of Hamburg, albums full of postcard motifs, and I discarded almost all of them. I ride my bike through Hamburg every day. I go shopping here, I go to the doctor -- and yet I no longer have the eye for telling stories about this damn city, even though I love it. But in Turkey I have the feeling that I'm seeing everything with different eyes.
SPIEGEL: In "The Edge of Heaven," you tell the story of a lesbian love affair between a German and a Turkish woman. How did your parents feel about it?
Akin: Oh, they know what sort of a son they have by now. Why two women? Because everything else felt like a cliché. A young, dark-haired Turk comes to Hamburg, where he falls in love with an innocent blonde? No, that's too much like King Kong and the white woman. The story only became sexy once two women were involved.
SPIEGEL: Do you plan to tell a German-Turkish story again in your next film?
Akin: No, all roads lead to America. I'm planning a film about European immigrants who went to the United States in the early 20th century. We want to reconstruct Ellis Island in (the Potsdam film studio) Babelsberg. But after New York we'll be going to the Southwest. There will even be Indians. It'll be my first Western.
ABOUT FATIH AKIN
Fatih Akin is a German film director of Turkish descent. He was born in Hamburg in 1973 and studied visual communications at the city's College of Fine Arts. He made his first film, "Short Sharp Shock," in 1998 and won the Golden Bear award at the Berlin Film Festival with his 2004 film "Head- On," which brought him to the attention of international audiences. His latest film, "The Edge of Heaven," won the Best Screenplay Award at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Article | A Hand That Links Germans and Turks
A Hand That Links Germans and Turks
By NICHOLAS KULISH
Published: January 6, 2008
FATIH AKIN has earned the right to be a little exasperated about the constant focus on his Turkish-German identity.
“Imagine I’m a painter, and we speak more about the background of the paintings than the foreground of the paintings, or we speak about the framing but not about the painting,” said Mr. Akin, a German film director and the son of Turkish immigrants. “For sure this is frustrating, and for sure that’s why I will leave it behind sooner or later.”
But he has not yet abandoned the journeys between Germany and Istanbul that have stood at the center of several of his films — including the breakout success in Europe of his dark, violent love story, “Head-On.” With his latest feature, “The Edge of Heaven,” Mr. Akin has created another film of similar geography but with a very different emotional landscape. It is a movie as much about bridging the gap between generations — father and son, mother and daughter — as between nations and cultures. He has had success with this latest film, for which he was writer, director and a producer, despite enormous expectations at home after “Head-On,” not the least of which were his own.
The film has stood up to scrutiny. “The Edge of Heaven” won the screenwriting prize at Cannes, received critical acclaim in Germany and will represent the country in the competition to be nominated for best foreign-language film at the Academy Awards. The movie is scheduled to open in New York at Film Forum on May 21.
In the meantime Mr. Akin, 34, will travel to the United States this month for his first shoot there. “It makes no sense to love the cinema and not take the chance once you have the possibility to work there, to refuse it,” Mr. Akin said. “If you love the cinema, you have to love America.”
German directors have flocked to Hollywood in recent years — among them, Oliver Hirschbiegel, “The Invasion”; Robert Schwentke, “Flightplan”; and Mennan Yapo, “Premonition.” Though he has had offers, Mr. Akin has not succumbed — and says he will not — to the allure or the financial payoff of a big Hollywood production, as so many of his countrymen have.
“I come from this European auteur thing,” Mr. Akin said. “I’m producing the stuff I’m doing, I’m writing the stuff I’m doing, I’m directing the stuff I’m doing. In the end it’s me on the front line, you know?”
Instead of going to Hollywood, he is making a short film called “Chinatown” for “New York, I Love You,” a follow-up to “Paris, Je T’Aime,” the collection of 18 vignettes that opened in New York last year. “That the first thing I do is, like, a five-minute film on U.S. ground, that feels healthy in a way,” Mr. Akin said in an interview here at the office of his production company, Corazón International.
Beyond his experience as a director, Mr. Akin has worked as a producer, through Corazón, on the Turkish director Ozer Kiziltan’s film “Takva,” also providing technical support in sound and editing. Mr. Akin said he was moved by its story of a humble, religious Turk forced to confront the material world by his promotion to rent collector for his religious group’s properties.
“If Fatih wasn’t involved in the project, it wouldn’t be that successful on the international side,” Mr. Kiziltan said on a sunny afternoon in Istanbul, where he was filming a television show. “If you showed the film with the first script to producers here, they say you can’t find the financing. Now everybody is saying they wish it was their film.” In addition to Germany’s nod for “The Edge of Heaven,” Turkey chose “Takva” for the Oscar foreign-language competition, a double for Mr. Akin.
A gifted raconteur in German and English, Mr. Akin is energetic and quickly engaging. Past collaborators describe his ability to communicate as one of his greatest strengths as a director. Mr. Akin is still based here in Hamburg, where he was born. His offices are just off a stretch of waterfront where a seven-ton anchor stands as a monument to this northern port city’s lifeblood: shipping. On the block sit a string of Portuguese restaurants and a red-brick church built to minister to Scandinavian seafarers a hundred years ago.
It was here that Mr. Akin set his first feature-length movie, “Short Sharp Shock,” a “Mean Streets”-style look at three friends — one Turkish, one Greek and one Serbian — trying to get ahead, or at least survive. He was just 19 when he wrote the screenplay and brought it to the German independent production company Wüste Film, hoping for a movie he could star in. Mr. Akin had been taking small acting roles and was disappointed with the stereotypical hoodlums he was asked to portray. The producers were trying out another director and got the idea of putting Mr. Akin behind the camera.
He had been operating a boom at a test shooting at a beach, remembered Ralph Schwingel, a producer at Wüste. Mr. Schwingel said he asked Mr. Akin what he was doing. The young man answered that he was figuring out how he would shoot the scene if he were the director.
“He was drawing the characters in the sand and wondering where he would put the camera,” Mr. Schwingel said. Using his own money, Mr. Schwingel paid for Mr. Akin to write and direct a short film, so he could learn the craft and also convince potential financial backers that he could pull off a feature. The result was “Short Sharp Shock” in 1998.
The film could have disappeared in the sea of Quentin Tarantino-inspired movie violence produced in the late ’90s, but quiet moments between the Turkish father and his troubled son stand out as more powerful than any spurts of blood in the finale.
“That he was unusually talented was clear very quickly,” said Mr. Schwingel’s partner, Stefan Schubert. The movie was a typical debut, well received but hardly a hit, Mr. Schubert said. In his eyes what set Mr. Akin apart from other German directors was that “he is not afraid to put feelings up on the screen.”
Mr. Akin demonstrated that clearly (if not completely successfully) in his second full-length film, “In July,” a romantic comedy about a German man following a Turkish woman from Hamburg to Istanbul. In his review in The New York Times, A. O. Scott wrote, “Mr. Akin pursues his happy, silly love story without embarrassment, and ‘In July’ is ultimately more endearing than irritating.” But it hardly seemed to herald the arrival of a great director. Neither did the follow-up, “Solino,” about a family of Italian immigrants in Germany.
Then came the surprise triumph of “Head-On,” which won the top prize, the Golden Bear, at the Berlin International Film Festival. Mr. Akin was unprepared for the celebrity it brought him in Germany as well as in Turkey. He was instantly seen as a cultural spokesman, far beyond his role as a filmmaker, to a large extent because of his Turkish roots, at a time when Germans were re-examining their complex relationship with their country’s large Muslim minority. About 2.7 million people of Turkish descent live in Germany today.
Speaking of “Head-On” and the Golden Bear, Dieter Kosslick, director of the Berlin International Film Festival, said, “In a way it was the perfect award because it shows a little bit also the change of our country and the change of our people’s mood about people who have come from different countries.”
Brought over as so-called guest workers decades ago, most of the Turkish migrants never went home. But as a group they have not been embraced by mainstream German society.
For Mr. Akin, who was 30 when he won the Golden Bear, it was hard enough to be the pride of one nation; he had to learn to thrive under the pressure of two and at the same time try to avoid the position of spokesman that had been thrust upon him.
Slouching on a sofa in his office, swaddled in youthful, baggy clothes and tired from the hectic schedule of the international rollout for “The Edge of Heaven,” Mr. Akin seemed far less like a man taking a victory lap than one relieved of a burden but still exhausted from it.
“Until ‘Head-On’ I exactly knew what I was going to do next,” he said. “I’m working on a film, and during the work on that film I knew what would be the next film. But with ‘Head-On’ it was not like that.”
“The more success the film had, the more nervous I became.”
He dealt with the problem in part by making his well-received documentary about music in Istanbul, ”Crossing the Bridge,” instead of beginning another feature.
Ultimately, though, he started to work on “The Edge of Heaven.” In the film a young Turkish-German man goes to Istanbul to find a murdered woman’s daughter, only to decide to stay in Turkey, his father’s homeland, and run a German bookstore in the city. In another strand of the story, a young German woman travels to Istanbul after her lover, a Turkish woman rejected for asylum by Germany and forced to serve prison time.
The film is marked by sudden, unexpected deaths. When tragedy befalls one of the young women, the German girl’s mother, played by the German actress Hanna Schygulla, travels to Istanbul also. Often called Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s muse, Ms. Schygulla, according to many critics, turned in the most affecting performance in the movie.
“It’s a very mature script,” Ms. Schygulla said by telephone from Paris. “I was amazed about that.”
Speaking of Mr. Akin, she said: “He’s a very natural boy. He’s not a boy; he’s a man. But he still has kept something of a boy.” It is a feeling she wants him to hold onto. “I hope he doesn’t get deformed by his success, that he stays the authentic boy he is,” she added.
“The Edge of Heaven” has its similarities in theme and some settings to “Head-On,” but it also reflects a more mature approach. The focus on parents and children may stem from Mr. Akin’s experience of becoming a father in 2005, when he and his wife had a son.
Still, “The Edge of Heaven” takes up the subject of cultural conflict for Turkish migrants that played to such powerful effect in “Head-On.” Those conflicts are universal, Mr. Akin insisted, rather than specific to the two countries. Mr. Akin, whose wife is of Mexican heritage, said that he feels great kinship with the Mexican filmmakers Guillermo Arriaga and Alfonso Cuarón.
“What I’m always trying to say is, this Turkish-German gap, you know, or this connecting element of the two nations, or systems, or worlds — you can change that and put other things instead,” Mr. Akin said. “Mexico and the U.S., same thing.”
By NICHOLAS KULISH
Published: January 6, 2008
FATIH AKIN has earned the right to be a little exasperated about the constant focus on his Turkish-German identity.
“Imagine I’m a painter, and we speak more about the background of the paintings than the foreground of the paintings, or we speak about the framing but not about the painting,” said Mr. Akin, a German film director and the son of Turkish immigrants. “For sure this is frustrating, and for sure that’s why I will leave it behind sooner or later.”
But he has not yet abandoned the journeys between Germany and Istanbul that have stood at the center of several of his films — including the breakout success in Europe of his dark, violent love story, “Head-On.” With his latest feature, “The Edge of Heaven,” Mr. Akin has created another film of similar geography but with a very different emotional landscape. It is a movie as much about bridging the gap between generations — father and son, mother and daughter — as between nations and cultures. He has had success with this latest film, for which he was writer, director and a producer, despite enormous expectations at home after “Head-On,” not the least of which were his own.
The film has stood up to scrutiny. “The Edge of Heaven” won the screenwriting prize at Cannes, received critical acclaim in Germany and will represent the country in the competition to be nominated for best foreign-language film at the Academy Awards. The movie is scheduled to open in New York at Film Forum on May 21.
In the meantime Mr. Akin, 34, will travel to the United States this month for his first shoot there. “It makes no sense to love the cinema and not take the chance once you have the possibility to work there, to refuse it,” Mr. Akin said. “If you love the cinema, you have to love America.”
German directors have flocked to Hollywood in recent years — among them, Oliver Hirschbiegel, “The Invasion”; Robert Schwentke, “Flightplan”; and Mennan Yapo, “Premonition.” Though he has had offers, Mr. Akin has not succumbed — and says he will not — to the allure or the financial payoff of a big Hollywood production, as so many of his countrymen have.
“I come from this European auteur thing,” Mr. Akin said. “I’m producing the stuff I’m doing, I’m writing the stuff I’m doing, I’m directing the stuff I’m doing. In the end it’s me on the front line, you know?”
Instead of going to Hollywood, he is making a short film called “Chinatown” for “New York, I Love You,” a follow-up to “Paris, Je T’Aime,” the collection of 18 vignettes that opened in New York last year. “That the first thing I do is, like, a five-minute film on U.S. ground, that feels healthy in a way,” Mr. Akin said in an interview here at the office of his production company, Corazón International.
Beyond his experience as a director, Mr. Akin has worked as a producer, through Corazón, on the Turkish director Ozer Kiziltan’s film “Takva,” also providing technical support in sound and editing. Mr. Akin said he was moved by its story of a humble, religious Turk forced to confront the material world by his promotion to rent collector for his religious group’s properties.
“If Fatih wasn’t involved in the project, it wouldn’t be that successful on the international side,” Mr. Kiziltan said on a sunny afternoon in Istanbul, where he was filming a television show. “If you showed the film with the first script to producers here, they say you can’t find the financing. Now everybody is saying they wish it was their film.” In addition to Germany’s nod for “The Edge of Heaven,” Turkey chose “Takva” for the Oscar foreign-language competition, a double for Mr. Akin.
A gifted raconteur in German and English, Mr. Akin is energetic and quickly engaging. Past collaborators describe his ability to communicate as one of his greatest strengths as a director. Mr. Akin is still based here in Hamburg, where he was born. His offices are just off a stretch of waterfront where a seven-ton anchor stands as a monument to this northern port city’s lifeblood: shipping. On the block sit a string of Portuguese restaurants and a red-brick church built to minister to Scandinavian seafarers a hundred years ago.
It was here that Mr. Akin set his first feature-length movie, “Short Sharp Shock,” a “Mean Streets”-style look at three friends — one Turkish, one Greek and one Serbian — trying to get ahead, or at least survive. He was just 19 when he wrote the screenplay and brought it to the German independent production company Wüste Film, hoping for a movie he could star in. Mr. Akin had been taking small acting roles and was disappointed with the stereotypical hoodlums he was asked to portray. The producers were trying out another director and got the idea of putting Mr. Akin behind the camera.
He had been operating a boom at a test shooting at a beach, remembered Ralph Schwingel, a producer at Wüste. Mr. Schwingel said he asked Mr. Akin what he was doing. The young man answered that he was figuring out how he would shoot the scene if he were the director.
“He was drawing the characters in the sand and wondering where he would put the camera,” Mr. Schwingel said. Using his own money, Mr. Schwingel paid for Mr. Akin to write and direct a short film, so he could learn the craft and also convince potential financial backers that he could pull off a feature. The result was “Short Sharp Shock” in 1998.
The film could have disappeared in the sea of Quentin Tarantino-inspired movie violence produced in the late ’90s, but quiet moments between the Turkish father and his troubled son stand out as more powerful than any spurts of blood in the finale.
“That he was unusually talented was clear very quickly,” said Mr. Schwingel’s partner, Stefan Schubert. The movie was a typical debut, well received but hardly a hit, Mr. Schubert said. In his eyes what set Mr. Akin apart from other German directors was that “he is not afraid to put feelings up on the screen.”
Mr. Akin demonstrated that clearly (if not completely successfully) in his second full-length film, “In July,” a romantic comedy about a German man following a Turkish woman from Hamburg to Istanbul. In his review in The New York Times, A. O. Scott wrote, “Mr. Akin pursues his happy, silly love story without embarrassment, and ‘In July’ is ultimately more endearing than irritating.” But it hardly seemed to herald the arrival of a great director. Neither did the follow-up, “Solino,” about a family of Italian immigrants in Germany.
Then came the surprise triumph of “Head-On,” which won the top prize, the Golden Bear, at the Berlin International Film Festival. Mr. Akin was unprepared for the celebrity it brought him in Germany as well as in Turkey. He was instantly seen as a cultural spokesman, far beyond his role as a filmmaker, to a large extent because of his Turkish roots, at a time when Germans were re-examining their complex relationship with their country’s large Muslim minority. About 2.7 million people of Turkish descent live in Germany today.
Speaking of “Head-On” and the Golden Bear, Dieter Kosslick, director of the Berlin International Film Festival, said, “In a way it was the perfect award because it shows a little bit also the change of our country and the change of our people’s mood about people who have come from different countries.”
Brought over as so-called guest workers decades ago, most of the Turkish migrants never went home. But as a group they have not been embraced by mainstream German society.
For Mr. Akin, who was 30 when he won the Golden Bear, it was hard enough to be the pride of one nation; he had to learn to thrive under the pressure of two and at the same time try to avoid the position of spokesman that had been thrust upon him.
Slouching on a sofa in his office, swaddled in youthful, baggy clothes and tired from the hectic schedule of the international rollout for “The Edge of Heaven,” Mr. Akin seemed far less like a man taking a victory lap than one relieved of a burden but still exhausted from it.
“Until ‘Head-On’ I exactly knew what I was going to do next,” he said. “I’m working on a film, and during the work on that film I knew what would be the next film. But with ‘Head-On’ it was not like that.”
“The more success the film had, the more nervous I became.”
He dealt with the problem in part by making his well-received documentary about music in Istanbul, ”Crossing the Bridge,” instead of beginning another feature.
Ultimately, though, he started to work on “The Edge of Heaven.” In the film a young Turkish-German man goes to Istanbul to find a murdered woman’s daughter, only to decide to stay in Turkey, his father’s homeland, and run a German bookstore in the city. In another strand of the story, a young German woman travels to Istanbul after her lover, a Turkish woman rejected for asylum by Germany and forced to serve prison time.
The film is marked by sudden, unexpected deaths. When tragedy befalls one of the young women, the German girl’s mother, played by the German actress Hanna Schygulla, travels to Istanbul also. Often called Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s muse, Ms. Schygulla, according to many critics, turned in the most affecting performance in the movie.
“It’s a very mature script,” Ms. Schygulla said by telephone from Paris. “I was amazed about that.”
Speaking of Mr. Akin, she said: “He’s a very natural boy. He’s not a boy; he’s a man. But he still has kept something of a boy.” It is a feeling she wants him to hold onto. “I hope he doesn’t get deformed by his success, that he stays the authentic boy he is,” she added.
“The Edge of Heaven” has its similarities in theme and some settings to “Head-On,” but it also reflects a more mature approach. The focus on parents and children may stem from Mr. Akin’s experience of becoming a father in 2005, when he and his wife had a son.
Still, “The Edge of Heaven” takes up the subject of cultural conflict for Turkish migrants that played to such powerful effect in “Head-On.” Those conflicts are universal, Mr. Akin insisted, rather than specific to the two countries. Mr. Akin, whose wife is of Mexican heritage, said that he feels great kinship with the Mexican filmmakers Guillermo Arriaga and Alfonso Cuarón.
“What I’m always trying to say is, this Turkish-German gap, you know, or this connecting element of the two nations, or systems, or worlds — you can change that and put other things instead,” Mr. Akin said. “Mexico and the U.S., same thing.”
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