48th Thessaloniki International Film Festival

İki Çizgi (Two Lines) by was presented at 48th Thessaloniki International Film Festival - Agora - "Balkan Works in Progress" Screenings.

Un giorno perfetto by Ferzan Özpetek

Un giorno perfetto by Ferzan Özpetek – Italy, 95’

Isabella Ferrari, Valerio Mastandrea, Valerio Binasco, Nicole Grimaudo, Stefania Sandrelli
(Venezia 65)

Emma and Antonio, married with two children, have been separated for nearly a year. Antonio is living alone in the house where he used to live with his wife, while Emma has gone back to her mother, taking the children with her. Then, one night, a flying squad is called to the palazzo and the police burst into the apartment where gunshots have been heard. In a rapid succession of events, Un giorno perfetto describes the twenty-four hours before this moment, the simple but “unique” life of a group of people who are shadowed every step they take. Camilla turns seven, her brother Aris is sitting an exam at university, Emma loses her job in a call-center, her daughter Valentina meets a boy she likes, the honorable Elio Fioravanti is doing the round of election rallies, Maja, his beautiful wife finds out she is pregnant, young Kevin is invited to an extravagant party, the teacher, Mara, is meeting her lover and Antonio sees his wife for the last time. The stories interweave on the great stage of a frenetic, disquieting Rome that seems to be heading towards tragedy, although the slightest gesture, just one word, would be enough to change the path of destiny. Un giorno perfetto describes a passionate love, separating and uniting Emma and Antonio – with irony, emotion and compassion. It portrays worlds diverse and distant, that then meet, as if in an unrelenting thriller.

Emma e Antonio, sposati con due figli, sono separati da circa un anno. Antonio vive da solo nella casa dove abitava con la moglie, mentre Emma è tornata da sua madre, portando con sé i bambini. Poi, una notte qualunque, una volante viene chiamata nel palazzo e la polizia si accinge a fare irruzione nell’appartamento da cui qualcuno ha sentito provenire degli spari. Un giorno perfetto, in un serrato rincorrersi di avvenimenti, racconta le ventiquattro ore che precedono questo momento, la vita semplice eppure “unica” di un gruppo di personaggi pedinati passo dopo passo: Camilla compie sette anni, il fratello Aris fa un esame all’università, Emma perde il lavoro in un call-center, sua figlia Valentina incontra un ragazzo che le piace, l’onorevole Elio Fioravanti è in giro per comizi elettorali, Maja, la sua bella moglie, scopre di essere incinta, il piccolo Kevin viene invitato a una festa lussuosa, la professoressa Mara ha un appuntamento col suo amante e Antonio vede la moglie per l’ultima volta. Le storie si incrociano sul grande palcoscenico di una Roma frenetica e inquietante che sembra portare alla tragedia, anche se un minimo gesto, una sola parola, potrebbe deviare la traiettoria del destino. Un giorno perfetto racconta con ironia, commozione e pietà una feroce storia d’amore, quella che separa e unisce Emma e Antonio. E mette in scena mondi diversi e lontani, che si incrociano come in un giallo inesorabile.

Two lines / Iki Cizgi by Selim Evci

IKI ÇIZGI (Due linee) | Turchia,2008 |93 min.
Regia: Selim Evci
Produzione: Evci Film Production Company
Interpreti: Gülcin Santircıoğlu, Kaan Keskin
Sceneggiatura: Selim Evci
Fotografia: Meryem Yavuz
Scenografia: Mediha Didem Türenem
Musica: Samet Evci
Montaggio: Selim Evci

Starting in a big city and turning into a dramatic road story, the movie is based on a man and a woman's different identities in their own lines.

Selin is a business woman who is living with her younger boyfriend at a metropole, Istanbul. During the summer time, they decide to go to the south by their car and a long vacation starts

Director's Note Two Lines is initially a movie that provides a rather aloof portrait of Istanbul with its unique metropolitan formation. In today's Turkey, the overwhelming force of traditional codes and values is felt in every aspect of our lives. The clash between this traditional force and the inherited values of the west becomes increasingly problematic within the sphere of sexuality, identity and freedom; even harder as miscommunication and confusion sets in.

Two Lines focuses on this influence through the filter of two young protagonists striving to know one another. Their journey into the unknown will give the characters the possibility to break away from the roles given, encountered and transmitted. However, it is a mystery whether this path will make them closer, or farther.

Una giovane coppia convive ad Istanbul senza entusiasmi e senza una vera comunicazione reciproca. Lui è fotografo, lei fa l’attrice. Dopo aver subito l’intrusione di un ladro, i due decidono di partire per un viaggio in macchina, durante il quale incontrano due giovani vicine di casa, rimaste ferme senza benzina. Lui si ferma ad aiutarle, flirtando con loro, e così, per vendetta, la giovane compagna, dopo che anche la loro macchina s’è bloccata priva di carburante, sale sull’auto di uno sconosciuto per cercare aiuto. Le gelosie del giovane condurranno il loro rapporto lungo un pericoloso crinale teso a svelarne drammaticamente il non detto reciproco.

La Turchia contemporanea è divisa fra il ricordo della cultura passata, le cui costrizioni sono peraltro ancora presenti nel tessuto sociale, ed un presente non proprio di stampo “occidentale”, in cui l’apparente libertà ha incredibilmente generato dei nuovi tabù. “İki Çizgi” è il racconto di questa scissione che le società europee hanno invece dovuto affrontare già negli anni ’70. Il vuoto dei paesaggi e degli ambienti, come il silenzio fra le persone, fanno pensare ad Antonioni, mentre l’uso dei colori e una sorprendente sensibilità figurativa creano un’atmosfera allo stesso tempo composta ed urlante. “Due linee”, folgorante esempio della nuova ondata del cinema turco, è così una raffinata messa in scena di un gioco al massacro silenzioso ma non meno crudele, fotografando l’universale situazione di incomunicabilità di una coppia moderna, ancora raggelata dalla paura di confessarsi desideri ed impulsi condannati dalle regole sociali.

Selim Evci, 33 anni, è nato a Istanbul. Dopo la laurea ed un master in cinema, ha realizzato due cortometraggi e due documentari che hanno partecipato a numerosi festival internazionali. Insegna all’università di Istanbul ed è direttore dell’International Annual Akbank Short Film Festival. Nel 2006 ha fondato la Evci Film Production Company, con la quale ha prodotto in piena indipendenza İki Çizgi.

Original Title, İKİ ÇİZGİ |English Title, TWO LINES |Running time, 93 min. |Production Year, 2008 |Country of Production, Turkey |Color |Shooting Format, High Definition |Sound, Dolby Digital 5.1 |Original Language, Turkish |Sub, English, Italian |Formats available, 35 mm print / 1:1.85 , HDCAM SR, Digital Betacam |Turkey Release , October 2008 |Laboratory, Sinefekt |Sound Studio, IMAJ |Production, Evci Film Production |www.evcifilm.com
Evci Film Production Company.

OFFICE ADDRESS İstiklal cad. Mis Sokak. Tan Apt. No:6 Daire:6. Beyoğlu/İSTANBUL

TELEPHONE: 0212 249 58 35

FAX: 0212 249 58 34

E-MAİL : info@evcifilm.com

Venice Biennale | Introduction by the Director

Biennale Cinema 65th Venice Film Festival
Introduction by the Director of the 65th Mostra, Marco Müller

"What is new is unforgettable"Gilles Deleuze

We resolved, for this new-four years mandate of the Cinema Section of La Biennale (for this 65th Venice Mostra), to stop, once and for all, looking at the cinema as if it were an infallible compass. No longer did we want to ask the cinema to rescue us from a problematic, ambivalent, ambiguous present: it was up to us, instead, to stay in there, not to pass over the new problems (artistic and beyond) that are being posed by the age in which we have to live. An age characterized by an evershifting profusion of images, but also without, when all is said and done, there being all that much to see.

If the cinema is no longer (or almost) the cinema, this may also bring to light aspects whose positive nature is not immediately discernible. The cinema has become a whole series of ideas, forces, properties, capacities, myths and stories. And, above all, it has turned into a new way of thinking, and an original and powerful one. So that, fortunately, when we set out to track down what, in the cinema, has come after the modern, we are always exposed to the danger of contagion, from the risk of hybridization.

For over a century the cinema has been the most fertile and relevant medium, and the most inventive; one of the constituent elements of modernity (it has never been a spare part, replaceable, interchangeable). The part of modern cinema that we have experienced as necessary, almost definitive, has had a fine set of progeny. A progeny which, in its turn, has claimed the right to persist, not to disappear gracefully once its own time has passed (as so many movements in the visual arts, architecture and literature have done); it has even claimed, instead, to be the absolute reading of the cinema, its profundity, its essence. But the idea of a modern cinema that has lasted for over half a century is a true oxymoron.

While it did last, the historical modernity of the cinema soaked up everything that was contemporary, so that the contemporary ended up aspiring to be able to coincide with an ideal of the “modern.” Now that modernity is ready to find its place in genealogy and in history, the very notion of “modern cinema” daunts us – so hard have we squeezed it, ground it up, in order to extract what might still be of use to us. And the new classifications? “Contemporary” cinema: contemporary with what? The term, in any case, designates nothing permanent or stable.

The cinema is entertainment too, and it is undoubtedly industry that organizes entertainment (Malraux’s old aphorism remains valid: the first art to have been invented from scratch is in any case an industry). Yet it is no longer the mass spectacle with enchanting effects that it once was, capable of continually renewing its own mythology and, more rarely, its own works of reference. Many of the movies that are being made, in fact, bore people rather than entertain them. They promise moviegoers the latest in aesthetic techniques (special effects: of screenplay, performance, direction, visual wizardry), but then leave them frustrated, hungry for that stimulation of the imagination and for those illusions which the cinema had been able, in other times, to guarantee them, and of which it now offers them frozen shadows (perhaps someone left the air-conditioning on, and turned up too high...).

So who will take us toward new (different) territories, unlikely continents?
While they are certainly not unprecedented or surprising, at least two hints can be found in the program of the 65th Mostra.

a) If we look beyond reflexivity, negativity and historicity, some responses to the end of modernity and the “grand narratives” can perhaps be found in the worlds (in the South, to the East) where “necessary modernity” has never really arrived.

b) Even in worlds nearer to us (in the West, in the North), the passion for the new has not vanished: a “new” which is not novelty for the purposes of publicity, but creation, the sort with a signature, which has an author and so will not disappear with the fading of the latest “new” fashion. An author of the kind who can still allow him or herself the luxury of being untimely – who believes in the new but is conscious that the future is an art of transmission (and, at times, of tradition).

The (provisional) goals of our work are these.

We have reaffirmed the futility of the consecration of Art (pet subject of the festival since the end of the Thirties) and Geography (the pointless ecumenism of a festival as “atlas of the nations and the planet”). Rather, it is now a question of putting to use our knowledge of the route covered in former times in order to come up with new tracks, helping to renew the systems of mapping.

In order to put on a 65th Festival that will be pluralistic, and therefore intentionally contradictory, we could not but place the emphasis, as a glue that would hold the works together, on the intuition of the truth that is concealed in them.
Purity, uniformity and absoluteness appeared unfeasible (because unproductive), and so we have pursued authenticity through its opposite.

Quality has counted, but even more the non- coincidence of the expressive phenomena: narrative freedom; the splendor of the forms; the pleasure of the screen; the challenge to the “common sense of the real” – the continual questioning of the idea of fiction (or of non-fiction...) and of the limits of the point of view permitted to the moviegoer.

Shuffling the cards has meant: taking unexpected risks, trying out untested solutions; recapitulating the recent phases of the “new” in cinema in order to reassess them, to relocate them in the territories to which they belong (but without covering our backs with ideology).
The variety of propositions and options, models and schemes – even of genres (we have not foregone our midnight showings) – has revived the possibility of addressing very different kinds of viewers, particularly keen to explore, to reflect and to enjoy the diverse trajectories of the program. Once again this year it is questions that we must ask of them rather than providing them with answers.

As a result of these programming choices, we like to picture the “Venice International Film Festival” as a place with a richer range of individualities, which can be formed not by assimilation but by comprehension, through an active gaze and through comparison. The future of the Festival, in the shadow of the emerging new complex of movie theaters, is undoubtedly in need of it.

Venice Biennale | 65. Mostra Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica

Venice Biennale
The Director of the Cinema section, Marco Müller, continues the work he began in 2004, at the helm of The 65th International Venice Film Festival which runs August 27th to September 6th, 2008.

Semih Kaplanoglu Süt (Milk) – Turkey / France / Germany, 102‘(Venezia 65)
Melih Selcuk, Basak Koklukaya

A high school graduate, Yusuf could not pass the university entrance exam. Writing poetry is his greatest passion and some of his poems are being printed in various obscure literary journals. But neither these poems, nor the rapidly falling price of the milk they sell, are being of any benefit to Yusuf and Zehra’s lives. When Yusuf finds out about Zehra’s secret affair with the town’s stationmaster he gets disconcerted. Will he find the way to cope with his anxiety for the unknown future, the rapid change that he is going through and the pain of taking a step into adulthood and leaving his youth behind?

Yusuf, appena diplomato, non riesce a superare il test di ammissione all’università. Scrivere poesie è la sua più grande passione e alcune sue liriche vengono pubblicate in diverse, quanto oscure, riviste letterarie; tuttavia, Yusuf e Zehra non traggono alcun beneficio né dalle poesie, né dal rapido calo del prezzo del latte che vendono. Yusuf rimane sconcertato nel momento in cui viene a sapere della relazione segreta di Zehra con il capostazione della città. Riuscirà a trovare il modo di far fronte all’ansia per il futuro ignoto che lo attende, al rapido cambiamento che sta attraversando e al dolore di lasciarsi alle spalle la giovinezza per entrare nell’età adulta?


Ferzan Özpetek Un giorno perfetto – Italy, 95’
Isabella Ferrari, Valerio Mastandrea, Valerio Binasco, Nicole Grimaudo, Stefania Sandrelli
(Venezia 65)

23. Settimana Internazionale della Critica (International Film Critics Week) of the 65th Mostra Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica which is going to be held in Venice from August 27th to September 6th, 2008.

“Two Lines” is one of the selected 7 movies and is nominated a candidate for the award of “Golden Lion of the Future”. The movie will represent Turkey

Montreal 2008 | Bronze for TATIL KITABI

ZENITHS FOR THE BEST FIRST FICTION FEATURE FILMS 2008

Members of the jury of the First Fiction Films :
Pierre-Henri Deleau (France)
Denis Héroux (Canada)
Armand Lafond (Canada)

Golden Zenith for the Best First Fiction Feature films :
FOR A MOMENT, FREEDOM (EIN AUGENBLICK, FREIHEIT) by Arash T. Riahi (Austria/France)

Silver Zenith for the First Fiction Feature Film :
WELTSTADT by Christian Klandt (Germany)

Bronze Zenith for the Fisrt Fiction Feature Film :
SUMMER BOOK (TATIL KITABI) by Seyfi Teoman (Turkey)

2008 Sarajevo Film Festival | Autumn (Sonbahar) by Ozcan Alper

Autumn

Sonbahar
Turkey/Germany, 2008, colour, 106 mins

* Director/Screenplay: Özcan Alper
* Photography: Feza Çaldiran
* Editor: Thomas Balkenhol
* Art Director: Canan Çayir
* Sound: Mohammed Mokhtari
* Music: Yuri Rydahencko, Ayşenur Kolivar, Sumru Agiryürüyen
* Producers: F. Serkan Acar
* Production Company: Kuzey Film Production
* Cast: Onur Saylak, Raife Yenigül, Megi Kobaladze, Serkan Keskin, Nino Lejava, Sibel Öz, Cihan Çamkerten, Serhan Pir, Yaşar Güven

There were two films playing in the 2008 Sarajevo Film Festival revolving around the subject of a recently released convict trying and largely failing to resume a normal life - the other was Thanos Anastopoulos’ Correction (διόρθωση, Greece, 2007). Of the two, Özcan Alper’s feature debut Autumn was the more accomplished work, not least thanks to Feza Çaldiran’s ravishing landscape photography ensuring that there was plenty to look at even when the narrative ran out of steam in the final act.

The film begins with Yusuf’s release from prison, having spent ten years behind bars for his involvement in political protests while at university. He’s released on health grounds, and we’re told at the start that his lungs are barely functioning, signalling in advance that the events of the film will merely be a brief coda to a short life, a third of which was spent incarcerated. He moves back in with his elderly mother in a remote village in the mountainous region of eastern Turkey, and rapidly discovers that aside from the young schoolboy Onur (with whom he strikes up a brief rapport over the latter’s maths homework: Yusuf was a promising mathematician before fate intervened), virtually all the local inhabitants are from his mother’s generation due to the lack of opportunities, and he’s warned that if he stays with them he’ll become like them.

But despite an apparent job offer from his friend Cihan’s magazine, Yusuf does indeed stay with them, his mindset demonstrated by him tuning out the chatter of fellow villagers awaiting a minibus to stare at a slug on the ground (he later claims that everything moves too fast for him outside prison). His old friend Mikahil lives nearby, and attempts to liven things up by taking him out for the evening with two Georgian prostitutes, Maria and Eka, but instead Yusuf ends up having a long heart-to-heart with Eka about her own life as a single mother to a four-year-old girl.

Both similarly damaged by circumstances outside their control, Yusuf and Eka seem made for each other, but the distance between them seems unbridgeable by psychological issues that he can’t put into words, and which she lacks the Turkish to express (a revealing post-lovemaking shot sees them both curled up in a foetal position, simultaneously close and distant). He tries to take up music again after restoring a set of Turkish bagpipes, but his lungs aren’t up to the job - and it’s only a seemingly ill-advised trip to the top of the mountain accompanied by a reluctant Mikahil that gives him any kind of fulfilment.

Hints of Yusuf’s experience in prison are conveyed through brief video footage (random flashbacks can be triggered by anything, even slippered feet on a carpet take on the sound of hobnails on concrete) and overheard television news items about dangerous and insanitary conditions, but Alper generally eschews direct political comment - the only details of Yusuf’s “crime” are conveyed via cryptic one-liners delivered by others: he “wanted socialism”, he “got mixed up in this anarchist business”. While inside, his father died and his sister married and moved away, meaning that Yusuf becomes the primary focus of his mother’s life, and subjected to yet more pressure to marry and settle down.

But the narrative content generally plays second fiddle to some gorgeous images, usually framing Yusuf against the flora and fauna of the village hills. Autumn is signalled by a single yellow leaf drifting past a wooden window frame, and encroaching winter by a fog-blanket settling lower and lower down the slopes. A late encounter between Yusuf and Eka becomes a study in shades of blue, a funeral sees a red coffin carried along a snow-blown mountain path, while a beach encounter at sunset sees the screen split into three strips: deep orange sky, reflected by the texture of the water, the shore in the foreground almost black.

Towards the end, Alper overdoes it somewhat - a scene where Eka complains that Yusuf is like a character from a Russian novel feels like a scriptwriter’s contrivance, and a shot of Yusuf standing on a platform looking out to sea as the waves crash around him would be overwrought even without the swelling orchestral music - though this upping of the visual melodrama is possibly in self-conscious compensation for the fact that the narrative has almost entirely fizzled out by this stage. But for a debut, it’s a very promising piece of work, and it’ll be interesting to see where Alper goes from here.

Posted on 21st August 2008
Source:http://filmjournal.net/kinoblog/category/directors/ozcan-alper/

Montreal 08 | AUTUMN/SONBAHAR by Özcan Alper

AUTUMN/SONBAHAR by Özcan Alper
Focus on World Cinema
Turkey 2008 / Colour / 106 min

PRODUCTION TEAM
Director :Özcan Alper
Script :Özcan Alper
Photography :Feza Çaldiran
Editor :Thomas Balkenhol
Cast :Onur Saylak, Megi Koboladze, Serkan Keskin, Raife Yenigül, Nino Lejava

AUTUMN
Sentenced to jail in 1997 as a university student aged 22, Yusuf is released on health grounds 10 years later. He returns to his village in the Black Sea region, where he's welcomed only by his sick and elderly mother. It turns out that his father died while he was in jail and his older sister got married and moved away to the city. Economic factors mean that it's almost exclusively old people who live in the mountain villages, and the only person Yusuf sees is his childhood friend Mikhail. As autumn slowly gives way to winter, Yusuf meets Eka, a beautiful Georgian hooker. Neither the timing nor circumstances are right for these two people from different worlds. For all that, love becomes a final desperate attempt to grasp life and elude loneliness.


Özcan Alper
Born in Artvin, Turkey, in 1975, Özcan Alper studied physics and history of science at the University of Istanbul. Since 1997 he has been working as assistant director and production manager on a variety of productions. He directed a short fiction, Grandmother (2001), and two short documentaries, Voyage in the Time With a Scientist (2002) and Rhapsody and Melancholy in Tokai City (2005).

Montreal 08 | DOT by Dervis Zaim

NOKTA/DOT by Dervis Zaim
Focus on World Cinema
Turkey 2008 / Colour / 80 min

PRODUCTION TEAM
Director :Dervis Zaim
Script :Dervis Zaim
Photography :Ercan Yilma

Cast :
Mehmet Ali, Berhat Kilia, Sether Tanriógen

DOT
Ahmet decides to help his friend Selim sell a rare 13th century Koran owned by his family. He puts Selim into contact with the local mafia, who promptly kidnap him and request the Koran as ransom from Selim's father, Veli Hoca. Hoca pays the ransom but when the dust from the shady affair has settled both Selim and the gangsters lie dead. Now Ahmet would like to make amends for his involvement in the crime. He tries to track down Selim's family but learns that Mr. Hoca is dead. Ahmet is racked by remorse but he can't find a way of exorcising his ghosts. He tries Selim's uncle, Humdallah...


Dervis Zaim
Born in Famagusta, Cyprus in 1964, Dervis Zaim graduated from Warwick University in England and studied film production in London. In 1995, his first novel, Ares in Wonderland, won the prestigious Yunus Nadi literary prize in Turkey. A year later he made an auspicious debut as a director with SOMERSAULT IN A COFFIN. Among his other films: ELEPHANTS AND GRASS (2000), MUD (2003), WAITING FOR HEAVEN (2006).

Montreal 08 | SHADOW by Mehmet Güreli

SHADOW by Mehmet Güreli

Focus on World Cinema
2008 / Colour / 113 min

PRODUCTION TEAM
Director :
Mehmet Güreli
Script :
Nilgün Önes
Photography :
Ahmet Sesigürgil
Editor :
Ulas Cihan Simsek
Cast :
Görkem Yeltan, Serkan Ercan, Kaan Çakir, Memet Ali Alabor

SHADOW
Halim, a poet, is an old friend of Nevzat and who lives in Ankara with his wife and child. He comes to Istanbul because of his mother's illness. Nevzat, meanwhile, plans to marry Selma, the woman he loves. When Halim comes to visit, he introduces him to Selma. But there is a mystery about her: Selma's father, two husbands and a housekeeper have all mysteriously committed suicide. Halim and Selma take to each and Nevzat becomes jealous. They break their friendship and while Nevzat becomes estranged from Selma, Halim becomes more friendly and they fall in love. Halim cares about nothing else. Then Nevzat gets shocking news: Halim has committed suicide. What is it about Selma?


Mehmet Güreli
Born in 1949 in Istanbul, Mehmet Güreli studied philosophy in Istanbul University Faculty of Litterature. He published his first book in 1985, then he filmed a documentary, VAPURLAR (1987). While continuing as a publisher and writer, he shot his second documentary, Necdet Mahfi Ayral, in 2003. He his also an illustrator, with 13 exhibitions of his work since 1998.

Montreal 08 |SUMMER BOOK by Seyfi Teoman

SUMMER BOOK by Seyfi Teoman

2008 / Colour / 94 min
PRODUCTION TEAM
Director :
Seyfi Teoman
Script :
Seyfi Teoman
Photography :
Arnau Valls Colomer
Editor :
Çiçek Kahraman
Cast :
Taner Birsel, Ayten Tökün, Osman Inan, Harun Özüag, Tayfun Günay

SUMMER BOOK
In a small town in Turkish Anatolia, the school holiday has begun, the children in their blue uniforms happily running outdoors. Only Ali,10, seems troubled. One of his classmates has stolen his schoolbook, and now he won't be able to do his homework. His older brother Veysel comes to visit. He doesn't want to go back to his military service. He tells his father, Mustafa, a stern, argicultural merchant, that he wants to study business management at the university in Istanbul. His uncle Hasan, a divorced butcher, warns Veysel that life in the big city can be hard. The mother Guler chats with her friends over a glass of tea, seemingly calm but harbouring a secret suspicion that Mustafa has a mistress. The minor tensions of family life are thrown into sudden relief when Mustafa suffers a brain hemorrhage while away on a business trip..."SUMMER BOOK breathes a quiet assurance that's very impressive for a first feature..." -- Derek Elley (Variety)"Turkish first-time director Seyfi Teoman captures both the charm of what it means to be a child during summer vacation and an overwhelming feeling of grief in SUMMER BOOK." -- Gregory Valens (Hollywood Reporter)


Seyfi Teoman
Born in Turkey in 1977, Seyfi Teoman studied economics in Istanbul and filmmaking at the Lodz Film Academy in Poland. He made his directorial debut in 2004 with a short film, Apartment. SUMMER BOOK is his first feature.

Turkish Films of 32. Montreal World Film Festival

The 32nd edition of the Montreal World Film Festival, August 21 -September 1, 2008
First Films World Competition
TATIL KITABI, 2008 / Colour / 94 min, Dir. Seyfi Teoman, Turkey.

Focus on World Cinema
GÖLGE, 2008 / Colour / 113 min, Dir. Mehmet Güreli, Turkey - Italy.
NOKTA, 2008 / Colour / 80 min, Dir. Dervis Zaim, Turkey.
SONBAHAR, 2008 / Colour / 106 min, Dir. Özcan Alper, Turkey.

Turkish Films of Toronto International Film Festival 2008

Toronto International Film Festival announced final programming details, including the complete lineup of films and programmes, for its 33rd edition running September 4 through 13, 2008. As part of TIFF08, 312 films from 64 countries will screen, including 249 feature-length films, 76 per cent of which are world, international or North American premieres, and 61 of which are feature directorial debuts.

Three Turkish Films are included.

Three Monkeys / Üç Maymun by Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Pandora's Box / Pandoranin Kutusu by Yeşim Ustaoğlu
Süt (Milk) by Semih Kaplanoglu

Toronto 08| Süt by Semih Kaplanoglu

Country: Turkey
Year: 2008
Language: Turkish
Runtime: 102 minutes
Format: Colour/35mm

Production Company: Kaplan Film/Arizona Films
Producer: Semih Kaplanoglu
Screenplay: Semih Kaplanoglu
Production Designer: Naz Erayda
Cinematographer: Ozgur Eken
Editor: François Quiquéré
Sound: Marc Nourigat
Principal Cast: Melih Selcuk, Basak Koklukaya

International Sales Agent: The Match Factory



When a teenager learns that his mother is having an affair, he has to decide whether to base his reaction on the traditions of their patriarchal culture or on those of the recently modernized society that is emerging in Turkey.

Yusuf, a young poet, and his mother are struggling to make a living off the milk they get from their cows. Their town, like Turkey as a whole, is undergoing rapid industrialization, which is taking business away from local farmers. When his mother falls in love with the town's station master, her needs begin to awaken. Yusuf tries to ignore her burgeoning affair, but when he is drafted for military service and fails to pass his medical exam, the combined stresses become too much for him. He is pushed to make weighty decisions that will irreversibly determine the course of his relationship with his mother.

Much like Aida Begic's Snow and Mijke de Jong's Katia's Sister, both screening at this year's Festival, Süt addresses the complex effects of the rapid modernization occurring in Old Europe and western Asia. For writer-director Semih Kaplanóglu, rural life represents the last vestiges of Turkish tradition – and it is in these small, Old World villages that he has set his Yusuf trilogy, of which Süt is the second installment. Translating to “egg,” “milk” and “honey” in English, the titles of the three films are suggestive of their central concern: the changes that Kaplanóglu sees occurring in his home country. Just as production of some of the most elemental ingredients begins to adapt to the modern world, so must his characters' most fundamental mores.

Traditionally, rural women in Turkey have been overshadowed by their fathers, husbands, sons and families. Their own needs and desires have rarely been acknowledged. In Süt, Kaplanóglu filters his sweeping observations about the shift in Turkey's social customs through the painful transformation occurring between Yusuf and his mother.

Kaplanóglu's visual style has a graceful symbolism. His spare, rural landscapes and sparse dialogue mean that the merest glance or slightest drawing of breath becomes significant. It is a technique that imbues the entire film, and indeed the greater triptych, with poetic force.

Michèle Maheux


Semih Kaplanoglu was born in Izmir, Turkey, and completed cinema studies at Dokuz Eylül University in Izmir. His feature films are Away From Home (00), Angel's Fall (04), Yumurta (07) and Süt (08).

Toronto 08 | Three Monkeys / Üç maymun by Nuri Bilge Ceylan

Country: Turkey/France/Italy
Year: 2008
Language: Turkish
Runtime: 109 minutes
Format: Colour/35mm

Production Company: Zeynofilm Produksiyon Hizmetleri Ltd./NBC Film/Pyramide Productions/BIM Distribuzione
Producer: Zeynep Özbatur
Screenplay: Ebru Ceyland, Ercan Kesal, Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Production Designer: Ebru Ceylan
Cinematographer: Gökhan Tiryaki
Editor: Ayhan Ergürsel, Bora Göksingöl, Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Sound: Murat Senürkmez
Principal Cast: Hatice Aslan, Gürkan Aydin, Yavuz Bingöl, Ercan Kesal, Ahmet Rifat Sungar

Canadian Distributor: Mongrel Media
US Distributor: New Yorker Films
International Sales Agent: Pyramide International



Expanding upon his work in Climates, Turkish filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylan delivers another searing psychological drama about the unspoken dynamics in a dysfunctional family.

Taking the proverbial “three monkeys” as its title and moral anchor, Ceylan's newest film is composed of tightly wound secrets; evils that are not seen, heard or spoken, but which wreak a distressing havoc on the characters' lives.

Servet (Ercan Kesal), a wealthy politician, has caused a hit-and-run accident, and persuades his driver, Eyüp (Yavuz Bingöl), to assume responsibility. Eyüp is promised a sizeable sum of money upon his release from prison, but this initial act of subterfuge leads to much darker deceits.

In his absence, Eyüp's seductive wife Hacer (Hatice Aslan) becomes involved with Servet, and the couple's brooding teenaged son Ismail must carry the weight of their secret when he visits his father in jail.

Eyüp's release functions as a metaphorical unleashing of past indiscretions – his family's deceits, desires, infidelities and anxieties surface as grand moral fictions. Ceylan plays these against one another, harnessing the inability of Eyüp, Hacer, Ismail and Servet to communicate among themselves and wringing the resulting tension through every scene. Blind to the violence and moral decay brought about by their actions, they eventually – and collectively – come to personify the eponymous monkeys.

As he did on Climates, Ceylan works here with cinematographer Gökhan Tiryaki to produce breathtaking high-definition images, again demonstrating the exceptional potential of digital technology. Ceylan's sombre aesthetic and bracing statements make for a thrilling investigation into the mysterious contradictions of the human soul. This is a stunning work that confirms Ceylan as a master of his art.

Dimitri Eipides

Nuri Bilge Ceylan was born in Istanbul and graduated with an engineering degree from Bosphorus University before studying filmmaking for two years at Mimar Sinan University in Istanbul. His films include the short Cocoon (95) and the features The Small Town (97), Clouds of May (00), Distant (03), which won the Grand Prix as well as the prize for best actor for its two male leads at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival, and Climates (06). Three Monkeys (08) is his fifth feature.

Toronto 08| Pandora's Box /Pandoranin Kutusu by Yeşim Ustaoğlu

Pandora's Box /Pandoranin Kutusu by Yeşim Ustaoğlu Country: Turkey/France/Germany/Belgium Year: 2008 Language: Turkish Runtime: 112 minutes Format: Colour/35mm Production Company: Ustaoğlu Film Yapim/Silkroad Production/ Les Petites Lumières/ Stromboli Pictures/The Match Factory Producer: Yeşim Ustaoğlu, Muhammet Çakiral, Serkan Çakarer, Behrooz Hashemian, Setareh Farsi, Natacha Devillers, Catherine Burniaux, Michael Weber, Tobias Pausinger Screenplay: Yeşim Ustaoğlu, Selma Kaygusuz Production Designer: H.F. Farsi, Elif Taşçioğlu, Serdar Yilmaz Cinematographer: Jacques Besse Editor: Franck Nakache Sound: Bernd Von Bassevitz Music: Jean-Pierre Mas Principal Cast: Tsilla Chelton, Derya Alabora, Onur Unsal, Övül Avkiran, Osamn Sonant International Sales Agent: The Match Factory “Pandora's Box is a story of alienation and isolation. It is a story of individuals whose lives have been shaped by a sterile, middle-class morality, a story that many people touched by the inevitable combination of capitalism and modernity can identify with. It is a kind of human landscape, both universal and singular at the same time…” – Yeşim Ustaoğlu, director of Pandora's Box Like many films in the Festival this year, Turkish director Yeşim Ustaoğlu's Pandora's Box is concerned with the curse of modernity. As simple lives begin to give way to the hum and glamour of an industrialized, globalized lifestyle, a Pandora's box inevitably opens. Ustaoğlu tells the story of an estranged family – two sisters, Nesrin and Güzin, and a brother, Mehmet – who live their comfortable, preoccupied lives in Istanbul. When the siblings find out that their elderly mother, Nusret, has gone missing, they return to their small coastal hometown to find her. As the group journeys through the countryside, they realize that they are strangers in their own land – as ignorant to the ancient Turkish countryside as they are to each other. Most of all, however, they have become alienated from themselves, their dreams distracted by prejudice, nihilism and lazy concessions to the status quo. What starts out as a begrudging trip to find their mother turns into a voyage of self-discovery for the threesome, a poetic reordering of their psyches as the reality of the world around them is reflected back onto themselves. Ustaoğlu's visual style mimics the dual nature of this journey, with sweeping panoramas of Turkish landscapes that mirror the characters' inner worlds. There is a rich sense of authenticity that firmly grounds the film's cerebral themes in reality. The film plays with several paradoxes, not the least the fact that communication is easiest between the very old and the young. Nusret's own children cannot comprehend her emotions, but her grandson, Murat, can: he and his grandmother reach a state of mutual understanding through a profoundly touching display of affection that finally bonds them. Ustaoğlu keeps an unwavering eye on the drama unfolding in this family, using them as a potent metaphor for all the unsightliness – and hope – she sees promised in the modern world. Dimitri Eipides Yeşim Ustaoğlu was born in Turkey. She directed the documentary short Life on Their Shoulders in 2004, and has directed a number of feature films, including The Trace (94), Journey to the Sun (99), which won the Blue Angel Award for Best European Film and the Peace Film Award at the 1999 Berlin Film Festival, Waiting for the Clouds (04) and Pandora's Box (08).

INAF-466-01 Fall 2008 Georgetown University

DOWNLOAD MODERN/POSTMODERN PHILOSPHY AND FILM THEORY IN PDF

INAF-466-01 Georgetown University
SCREENING and LECTURE by ERJU ACKMAN Tue 6:15-8:15PM ICC 118
COURSE by DAVID CUTHELL Wed 4:15-6:05 ICC 206

BORDERS IDEOLOGY AND IDENTITY
1.YOL
2.PROPAGANDA

IDENTITY IN A RURAL SETTING
3.WAITING FOR THE CLOUDS/BULUTLARI BEKLERKEN
4.TIMES AND WINDS/FIVE TIMES/BES VAKIT

TRANSPORTED IDENTITIES IN AN URBAN SETTING
5.ESKIYA/BANDIT
6.BRIDE/GELIN

IDENTITY AND MARGINALIZATION
7.SOMERSAULT IN A COFFIN/TABUTTA ROVESATA
8.TAKVA

IDENTITIES OF REAL AND ASSUMED FAMILIES
9.FATHER AND SON/BABAM VE OGLUM
10.HOKKABAZ

DUAL IDENTITIES OF EU TURKS
11.EDGE OF HEAVEN -or- HEAD ON

__________________________________

SOURCES

Click to get a PDF of Turkish Cinema History 1897-2006
The Ten Best Turkish Films of All Time (2003 Poll)

__________________________________

FALL 2008 Articles

1. The Russian Monument at Ayastefanos (San Stefano): Between Defeat and Revenge, Remembering and Forgetting Dilek kaya Mutlu
2. Becoming Undone: Contesting Nationalisms in Contemporary Turkish Popular Cinema Gokcen Karanfil

3. Turkish Cinema in the New Europe Angelica Fenner

4. Screening identities at and beyond Europe’s borders Paul Cooke , Rob Stone

5. Istanbul Film 2005 By N. Buket Cengiz

6. No place like home? Or impossible homecomings in the films of Fatih Akin Daniela Berghahn

http://www.box.net/shared/brc0dtvny6

7. Deep nation

http://www.box.net/shared/6jshtf8zrb

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FALL 2007 Articles

PDF File 1
On Film narrative and Narrative meaning / George Wilson
Notes on Spectator Emotion and Ideological Film Criticism /Carl Plantinga

PDF File 2
The Matrix of Visual Culture/ Patricia Pisters

Chapter 6 (de)Terrorialising Forces of the Sound Machine

PDF File 3
Questions of Genre/ Steve Neale
Towards a Third Cinema/ Fernando Solanas and Octavio Gettino

PDF File 4
Deleuze’s Toolbox and Glossary to Cinema 1 and Cinema 2

PDF File 5
Remapping World Cinema / Identitiy, culture and politics in film Towards a positive definition of World Cinema/Lucia Nagip Consuming 'Bollywood' in the global age: the stange case of 'unfine' world cinema/Kushik Bhaumik

PDF File 6
The Real Gaze: Film Theory after Lacan Introduction Todd McGowan

Locarno Film Festival 2008

Mexican film-maker Enrique Rivero on Saturday took home the top prize of Switzerland's Locarno Film Festival with his film "Parque Via," about a man who has put himself in voluntary seclusion.
The special jury prize went to "33 Scenes from Life," by Polish Malgoska Szumowska, exploring the angst of a young woman coping with her mother's illness. The award for best direction was handed to Canadian Denis Cote for "Elle veut le chaos." Meanwhile, the public's pick for best film went to British filmmaker Garth Jenning's "Son of Rambow," a comedy about two adolescents trying to remake the film "Rambo." Illaria Occhini was tapped best actress for her role in "Mar Nero," while Tayanc Ayaydin took best actor for his performance in "The Market - A Tale of Trade."

Turkish films in Locarno Film Festival Competition

With 17 films confirmed to date, from 16 different countries, the selection for 2008 reflects the great diversity of current cinema – note the presence of an Irish filmmaker in competition for the first time since 1982, and a first film from Turkey, a country absent from the competition for nine years. The 2008 selection once again gives pride of place to young auteurs, with no less than 6 first films, and 4 second films. But discoveries are also measured in terms of what is entirely new, and this year there are 12 world and 5 international premières.

The 2008 competition is also distinguished by the recurrence of stories marked by economic and social themes. British filmmaker Ben Hopkins, noted for Simon Magus and The Nine Lives of Thomas Katz, delivers a fable of modern times about money and commerce, filmed in Turkey with local actors "The Market – A Tale of Trade."

SONBAHAR (Autumn)
Acquired for world sales during the festival, by Medialuna.
by Özcan Alper – Turkey/Germany – 2008 – 106 min.
with Onur Saylak Yusuf, Megi Koboladze Eka, R. Gulefer Yenigul, Serkan Keskin, Nini
Levaja Production: Kusey Film Production Co–productions: Film Fabrik Spiel-und Dokumentarfilmproduktion International Première – First Film

THE MARKET – A TALE OF TRADE (PAZAR - BIR TICARET MASALI)
by Ben Hopkins – Germany/Great Britain/Turkey/Kazakhstan – 2007 – 93 min.
with Tayanç Ayaydin, Genco Erkal, Senay Aydin, Hakan Sahin, Rojin
Production: Flying Moon Productions International Sales: The Works International
World Première

Autumn (Sonbahar) by Ozcan Almer

Autumn (Sonbahar)
Dan Fainaru in Locarno
06 Aug 2008 17:20


Dir: Ozcan Almer. Turkey 2008. 100 mins.

An auspicious debut from Turkish helmer Ozcan Alper, Autumn features a low-key, uneventful story which moves along slowly, offering a sad elegy not just for a pointlessly-lost youth, but a whole set of ideals that have soured – with the plot growing darker and more desperate as the season shifts into winter.

This is more of an intense personal statement than Kim Ki-duk's Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter and…Spring, but the comparison begs to be made not just because of the title, but because nature here gives the film a powerful dramatic backdrop, and, in the absence of much dialogue, also pushes the narrative along. Festivals will love this, playing as it does into the Turkish arthouse emergence, and specialty play could follow, although admittedly Autumn does have considerable commercial limitations.

Shot in a wild, untamed mountainous region of the North of Turkey, close to the Black Sea and the Georgian border, Autumn uses the stunning primeval landscape, shot at different times of the day and night and in differing conditions, to underline a drama the script seems eager to keep smouldering out of eyesight.

Released from prison after 10 years for demonstrating against the government, with his lungs barely functioning after a series of hunger strikes, Yusuf (Onur Saylak) has nowhere to go but back to his home in a remote village in the mountains. There, he lives in a small wooden shack with his old mother, left alone after the death of his father and the departure of his sister. Falling into an almost catatonic state of apathy, coughing but never revealing the exact state of his health, Yusuf occasionally helps a small boy who occasionally comes around with his homework.

Yusuf's only friend is Mikhail, the married village carpenter, who has never mustered enough courage to look for something better elsewhere. He soon discovers that all his rebellious university comrades have all settled down and forgotten their youthful idealism.

One day he meets Eka (Megi Koboladze), a woman who has come across the border from nearby Batum to work as a prostitute and send some money home to her mother and the child she left behind. A strange, mostly mute relationship is established between the two of them. He reminds her of heroes in the Russian novels she loves to read, and their sadly laconic encounters end one night in something that might be called an act of love or perhaps just a mutual act of mercy.

Beyond the personal tragedy of a man who has nothing to look forward to there is also, lurking in the shadows but pretty easy to see, the bitter deception of the socialist dream.

Viewers unprepared to constantly read between lines here are sure to be irked by Autumn's slow, undemonstrative pace. Mighty natural scenery compensates for much of the inactivity, helping to establish the mood, and if occasional flashbacks into Yusuf's city past do jar the pastoral atmosphere, they are sparingly and effectively used. The acting, as everything else, is kept on the minimalist side; implying rather than showing emotions.

Production companies/international sales

Kuzey Film Productions

+90 212 252 3605

Producers

F. Sercan Akar

Screenplay

Ozcan Alper

Director of photography

Feza Caldiran

Production designer

Canan Cayir

Editor

Thomas Balkenhol

Main Cast

Onur Saylak

Megi Koboladze

Gulefer Yenigul

Serkan Keskin

Nino Lejava

Heart of Two Nations by Nouritza Matossian

Heart of Two Nations: Hrant Dink
Turkey
2007, 40min.

Prod./Dir.: Nouritza Matossian, Dir. of Phot.: Tolga Aksac, Garo Berberian, Nouritza Matossian, Levent Kurumlu, Compos.: Mannik Grigorian, Hagop Matossian, Rolf Gehlhaar, MEG Recordings, Edit.: Levent Kurumlu, Jonathan Stokes.

Production Company
Tarmak Films
Address: Unit 2002, Spitfire Studios, 63-71 Collier Street, London, N1 9BE, UK
Tel/Fax: +44(0)20 7713 0070
www.tarmakfilms.com

Nouritza Matossian (born 1945) is an Armenian writer, actress, broadcaster and human rights activist. She writes on the arts, contemporary music, history and Armenia.
Matossian published the first biography and critical study of the Greek composer Iannis Xenakis, the source book on his life, architecture and music based on ten years' collaboration with him. She later adapted it into a 50-minute documentary for BBC2, entitled Something Rich and Strange.
Matossian's 1998 book Black Angel, A Life of Arshile Gorky was written after twenty years' research. Ararat, the award-winning film by Atom Egoyan and Miramax, was partly inspired by Black Angel. She acted as consultant to Egoyan who modelled the female lead role Ani on her. Matossian also wrote and performs a solo show on Gorky's life from the viewpoint of his four beloved women with images and music. It has been produced worldwide over 80 times at venues including the Barbican, Tate Modern, London, New York, Los Angeles, the Edinburgh Festival, Cyprus, Paris, Lebanon, Iran, Romania and Georgia. In Armenia she performed it simultaneously in two languages.
Matossian broadcasts on the BBC and contributes to several newspapers and magazines, including The Independent, The Guardian, The Economist, and The Observer. She was Honorary Cultural Attache for the Armenian Embassy in London from 1991-2000.
She spent her childhood in Cyprus with her Armenian family. Educated in England, she graduated with Honours in Philosophy (B.Phil) from Bedford College, University of London, then studied music, theatre and mime in Dartington and Paris; she has a command of nine languages.