Total films in release from January 2008 to December 15, 2008...258 (2007: 251)
Share of Turkish films 18.2% (2007: 14.7%) with 47 films released. (2007: 37)
Top 10 Box office (all Turkish [1] films)
1.Recep İvedik
2.AROG[*]
3.Issız Adam[*]
4.Osmanlı Cumhuriyeti[*]
5. Muro[*]
6.Mustafa[*]
7.120
8.Maskeli Beşler Kıbrıs’ta
9.Çılgın Dershane Kampta
10.O. Çocukları
[*] in current release
[1] in 2007 only 5 films in top 10 were Turkish productions.
Friday, December 19, 2008
Three Monkeys| English Press
English
- Screen International, " Three Monkeys", by Jonathan Romney
- Hollywood Reporter, "Three Monkeys", by Peter Brunette
- Hollywood Elsewhere, " Three Monkeys", by Jeffrey Wells
- Variety, " Three Monkeys", by Justin Chang
- Time Out (London), " Three Monkeys", by Geoff Andrew
- Zaman, "I won the bet, Ceylan won the award ", by Olkan Özyurt, interview with actor Yavuz Bingöl
- Time, "Turkish Director Fêted in Cannes, Ignored at Home", by Pelin Turgut
- Chicago Tribune, "'3 Monkeys' at present is toast of Cannes", by Michael Phillips, interview with N.B.Ceylan
- Guardian, "How shoplifting in Brixton led to a film career", by Geoffrey Macnab, interview with N.B.Ceylan
- Cinematical, "Cannes Review: Three Monkeys", by Kim Voynar
- Looking Closer Journal, "Three Monkeys", by Kenneth R. Morefield
- The Lumiere Reader, "Gloom Merchant: Three Monkeys", by Steve Garden
- The Back Row Manifesto, "Three Monkeys", by Tom Hall
- Hindustan Times, "Of Unusual Suspects", by Rashid Irani
- NDTV Movies, "Three Monkeys", by Kuhu Tanvir
- Business Standard, "Better than a close-up", by Neha Bhatt
- Chicks on Fire, "Three Monkeys", by Aurelle
- Zaman, "The road to perdition", by Emine Yıldırım
- Dear Cinema, "Kolkata Film Festival: Day 3", by Sumit Dasgupta
- Daily News (Egypt), "Turkish director experiments with 'Three Monkeys'", by Joseph Fahim
- Dear Cinema, "Nuri Bilge Ceylan: Turkey’s new master of cinema", by Jugu Abraham
- Film Making Blog, "Unique View: Three Monkeys", by Alper Cagatay
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Trailer | Gunesi Gordum by Mahsun Kirmizigul
SYNOPSIS FROM BOYUT FILM A film dedicated to peace and children... A mountain village perched on the border between two worlds... The home, for generations, of the Altun family... But with the introduction of forced migration policies, the family finds itself wrenched from the village. This is the story of their relocation from east to west. Haydar and Isa Altun arrive with their respective families in Istanbul, where they decide to stay. But Davut Altun, his wife and children set their sights further afield and travel on to Norway... Spanning a period of 25 years, the film recounts the experiences of the three families as they struggle to find their feet in alien surroundings. It is a film that condemns all of discrimination or otherization and argues that war,fighting and contempt for anyone unlike oneself are the very problem itself... The story that unfolds in the film is a story that belongs to us all, to this country, to Turkey... Boyut Film | Tel: 0212 2704830 | Fax:0212 2703754 OFFICIAL SITE http://www.gunesigordum.com
Saturday, December 13, 2008
'Mustafa' a hit in Turkey
'Mustafa' a hit in Turkey
Doc mixes original footage and re-enactments
By ALI JAAFAR
LONDON A new film about Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern-day Turkey, has become a sensation in his native country.
"Mustafa," a docu written and directed by Can Dundar, which mixes original footage with re-enactments of the leader's life, is the fastest grossing Turkish pic of the year. It has garnered almost a million admissions since its debut Oct. 29, only days before the 70th anniversary of Ataturk's death Nov. 10.
It is also by some margin the most controversial Turkish pic of the year, with Ataturk-loyalists decrying its portrayal of the venerated leader as a hard-drinking, chain-smoking womanizer.
Some critics have also blasted Dundar's attempts to humanize Ataturk -- whose surname means "father of the Turks" -- by referring to him by his first name and for using a Greek actor to portray Ataturk as a child.
Pic has even outgunned James Bond.
"Mustafa" is comfortably outgrossing "Quantum of Solace," bringing in 43,000 admissions on Nov. 11 compared with the Bond sequel's 20,000 admissions.
Turkey is a country virtually defined by its contradictions, with one foot in Asia and the other in Europe. With a population split between those who favor the fervently secularist ideals that Ataturk enshrined when he founded the modern state of Turkey in 1923 following the demise of the Ottoman Empire and those who follow the more Islamic views espoused by the current ruling AK party, the figure of Ataturk has often been seen as a rare unifier in the country. All of which has made Dundar's warts-and-all approach dominate media coverage in recent weeks.
"There has been so much controversy," says producer Nurhan Ozer. "There's no film in Turkey that has been criticized so much. Every day we're receiving between 50-100 news articles about the film. And controversial views are more frequent than the positive ones."
That hasn't stopped Turks from showing up in droves to see the pic, which is being distribbed by Warner Bros. locally.
The hot-potato subject matter of the pic also scared off potential investors. Turkcell, one of Turkey's largest mobile phone operators, was due to be a sponsor until it backed out of the pic following the political furor. Ultimately, the $1.2 million project was fully funded by Turkish satcaster NTV and conglom Sabanci Holding.
Pic is on course to bring in nearly 1.5 million admissions by the end of its first month of release, but remains some way behind the all-time Turkish box office champ "Recep Ivedik," from helmer Togan Gökbakar.. That pic, a laffer based on a popular Turkish character, brought in better than 4 million admissions when released earlier this year.
Doc mixes original footage and re-enactments
By ALI JAAFAR
LONDON A new film about Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern-day Turkey, has become a sensation in his native country.
"Mustafa," a docu written and directed by Can Dundar, which mixes original footage with re-enactments of the leader's life, is the fastest grossing Turkish pic of the year. It has garnered almost a million admissions since its debut Oct. 29, only days before the 70th anniversary of Ataturk's death Nov. 10.
It is also by some margin the most controversial Turkish pic of the year, with Ataturk-loyalists decrying its portrayal of the venerated leader as a hard-drinking, chain-smoking womanizer.
Some critics have also blasted Dundar's attempts to humanize Ataturk -- whose surname means "father of the Turks" -- by referring to him by his first name and for using a Greek actor to portray Ataturk as a child.
Pic has even outgunned James Bond.
"Mustafa" is comfortably outgrossing "Quantum of Solace," bringing in 43,000 admissions on Nov. 11 compared with the Bond sequel's 20,000 admissions.
Turkey is a country virtually defined by its contradictions, with one foot in Asia and the other in Europe. With a population split between those who favor the fervently secularist ideals that Ataturk enshrined when he founded the modern state of Turkey in 1923 following the demise of the Ottoman Empire and those who follow the more Islamic views espoused by the current ruling AK party, the figure of Ataturk has often been seen as a rare unifier in the country. All of which has made Dundar's warts-and-all approach dominate media coverage in recent weeks.
"There has been so much controversy," says producer Nurhan Ozer. "There's no film in Turkey that has been criticized so much. Every day we're receiving between 50-100 news articles about the film. And controversial views are more frequent than the positive ones."
That hasn't stopped Turks from showing up in droves to see the pic, which is being distribbed by Warner Bros. locally.
The hot-potato subject matter of the pic also scared off potential investors. Turkcell, one of Turkey's largest mobile phone operators, was due to be a sponsor until it backed out of the pic following the political furor. Ultimately, the $1.2 million project was fully funded by Turkish satcaster NTV and conglom Sabanci Holding.
Pic is on course to bring in nearly 1.5 million admissions by the end of its first month of release, but remains some way behind the all-time Turkish box office champ "Recep Ivedik," from helmer Togan Gökbakar.. That pic, a laffer based on a popular Turkish character, brought in better than 4 million admissions when released earlier this year.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
MOMA Filmmaker in Focus: Ferzan Ozpetek
Filmmaker in Focus: Ferzan Ozpetek
December 4–14, 2008
One of the most successful and award-winning contemporary Italian filmmakers, Ferzan Ozpetek (b. 1959, Istanbul) creates films that display a unique thematic focus while remaining ambitious in scope and richly rewarding in their technical achievement. Effortlessly elegant, his aesthetic rarely calls attention to itself; his films masterfully illuminate various strains of society and strands of storytelling, and his actors shine in beautifully written, multifaceted parts that embrace an unforced multiculturalism. Ozpetek's films are often rooted in the tradition of the sophisticated melodramas of the 1950s, pivoting around seemingly ordinary and content people whose lives become unmoored—often by a sudden death—leading to the discovery of previously unacknowledged passions and possibilities.
The filmmaker's signature tracking camera stunningly unites disparate time periods (as in Facing Windows and Harem) and distant locales (Italy and Turkey), and creates a visual connection between Ozpetek's central characters and the extended families they discover, whether in close friendships (Saturn in Opposition), in communal living (His Secret Life), or in caring for those in need (Sacred Heart, Facing Windows). His is a humanistic cinema in which the kindness of strangers is the most readily available because—as the Sister Sledge song puts it—"We are family."
Organized by Jytte Jensen, Curator, the Department of Film, and Camilla Cormanni and Paola Ruggiero, Cinecittà Holding, Rome. The exhibition features new prints courtesy of Cinecittà Holding. Grateful thanks to the producers and distributors: Domenico Procacci of Fandango, RAI Cinema, Medusa Film, Mikado Film, Gianluca Curti of Minerva Pictures, Tilde Corsi and Gianni Romoli of R&C Production, Sony Pictures Classics, and Strand Releasing. The series is made possible thanks to the support of the Italian Ministry of Culture, Cinema Department, in collaboration with The Italian Cultural Institute, New York, the Moon and Stars Project, The American Turkish Society, and Peuterey. Additional thanks to the Italian Consulate, New York, Moleskine, Laura Delli Colli, Antonio Monda, Mondadori, Moira Mazzantini, Lula Sarchioni, Emanuela Di Suni, Gioia Donati, and Gianni Giansanti for their kind collaboration.
Le fate ignoranti (His Secret Life). 2001. Italy. Screenplay by Ferzan Ozpetek, Gianni Romoli
His Secret Life. 2001. Italy. Directed by Ferzan Ozpetek
Le fate ignoranti (His Secret Life). 2001. Italy. Directed by Ferzan Ozpetek. Screenplay by Ferzan Ozpetek, Gianni Romoli. With Margherita Buy, Stefano Accorsi, Serra Yilmaz. When Antonia's husband is suddenly killed in a car accident, she discovers that he led a second life. Obsessed with her husband's secrets, she finds his other lover and their circle of friends, and becomes intrigued with their rooftop "commune." The messy, quarrelsome, compassionate, colorful, and fun characters from her husband's parallel life challenge her well-ordered existence and fixed worldview. In Italian; English subtitles. 105 min.
Thursday, December 4, 2008, 7:00 p.m., Theater 1, T1 (Introduced by Ozpetek and Stefano Accorsi)
Friday, December 12, 2008, 9:00 p.m., Theater 2, T2
Un giorno perfetto (A Perfect Day). 2008. Italy. Directed by Ferzan Ozpetek. With Isabella Ferrari, Valerio Mastandrea, Stefania Sandrelli. Ozpetek's latest film is based—uncharacteristically for the director—on a popular novel. In this multifaceted narrative encompassing domestic violence, political corruption, youthful rebellion, and class differences in a modern city, a day of events and encounters leads to an irrevocably pitch-dark end (the film's title is highly ironic). The ferocious—mostly wordless—climactic scenes are filmed in extreme close-up, brilliantly capturing the actors' exceptional performances. In Italian; English subtitles. 101 min.
Friday, December 5, 2008, 6:00 p.m., Theater 1, T1 (U.S. premiere. Introduced by Ozpetek, actress Isabella Ferrari, and Laura Delli Colli, author of Ferzan Ozpetek: Eyes Wide Open. Followed by a Q&A with Ozpetek and Ferrari)
Saturday, December 13, 2008, 4:00 p.m., Theater 2, T2 (U.S. premiere)
La finestra di fronte (Facing Windows). 2003. Italy. Screenplay by Ferzan Ozpetek, Gianni Romoli
Facing Windows. 2003. Italy. Directed by Ferzan Ozpetek
La finestra di fronte (Facing Windows). 2003. Italy. Directed by Ferzan Ozpetek. Screenplay by Ferzan Ozpetek, Gianni Romoli. With Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Massimo Girotti, Raoul Bova. This beautifully constructed tale links a pair of Roman love stories: one set in the 1940s, the other among the newly constructed buildings on the outskirts of modern-day Rome. Giovanna and her husband take in an old man suffering from temporary amnesia who is obsessed with memories from the autumn of 1943. The man's story of forbidden love parallels Giovanna's unhappiness in her marriage and her obsession with the handsome stranger that she spies on from across the street. In Italian; English subtitles. 106 min.
Friday, December 5, 2008, 8:15 p.m., Theater 1, T1 (Introduced by Ozpetek and Laura Delli Colli, author of Ferzan Ozpetek: Eyes Wide Open. Followed by a Q&A with Ozpetek)
Sunday, December 14, 2008, 1:00 p.m., Theater 2, T2
Il bagno turco/Hamam (Steam: The Turkish Bath). 1997. Italy/ Turkey/Spain. Screenplay by Ferzan Ozpetek
Steam: The Turkish Bath. 1997. Italy/Turkey/Spain. Directed by Ferzan Ozpetek
Il bagno turco/Hamam (Steam: The Turkish Bath). 1997. Italy/Turkey/Spain. Directed by Ferzan Ozpetek. Screenplay by Ferzan Ozpetek. With Alessandro Gassman, Francesca d'Aloja, Carlo Cecchi. When Francesco's aunt dies in Istanbul, he leaves his wife in charge of their small design company in Rome and travels to Turkey to sell his inheritance—a traditional hamam (Turkish bath). Smitten with the hamam and the family that runs it, Francesco soon decides to remain in Turkey. When his wife arrives to deliver important news, she discovers a different Francesco. Handled with delicate care and great insight into the slow burn of buried passions, Ozpetek's first feature is a compassionate visual exploration of cultural and sexual barriers. In Italian, Turkish; English subtitles. 94 min.
Saturday, December 6, 2008, 3:00 p.m., Theater 1, T1
Sunday, December 14, 2008, 3:00 p.m., Theater 2, T2
Cuore Sacro (Sacred Heart). 2005. Italy. Screenplay by Ferzan Ozpetek, Gianni Romoli
Sacred Heart. 2005. Italy. Directed by Ferzan Ozpetek
Cuore Sacro (Sacred Heart). 2005. Italy. Directed by Ferzan Ozpetek. Screenplay by Ferzan Ozpetek, Gianni Romoli. With Barbora Bobulova, Andrea Di Stefano, Lisa Gastoni. Irene, a successful property developer with few personal connections, is thrown into turmoil when she begins restorations on her inheritance, the former residence of the mother she barely knew. As visits to her mother's old room and encounters with a persistent street kid start to get under her skin, her well-ordered world begins to show cracks. Bobulova's excellent performance as the steel-hearted heiress who gives fate a chance brings a complex psychological portrait to vivid life. In Italian; English subtitles. 116 min.
Saturday, December 6, 2008, 5:00 p.m., Theater 1, T1
Friday, December 12, 2008, 4:30 p.m., Theater 2, T2
Harem suaré (Harem). 1999. Italy/France/Turkey. Directed by Ferzan Ozpetek. Screenplay by Ferzan Ozpetek, Gianni Romoli. With Marie Gillain, Alex Descas, Valeria Golino. Safiye, the favorite concubine of the last sultan of the Ottoman Empire, falls in love with a black eunuch and is left behind to fight for the rights of the harem when the deposed sultan escapes to Europe. The complex narrative structure of this sumptuous story within a story mirrors traditional Oriental oral storytelling, and the opulent sets and costumes are shot with exceptional style and beauty. In Turkish, Italian; English subtitles. 105 min.
Sunday, December 7, 2008, 3:00 p.m., Theater 1, T1
Thursday, December 11, 2008, 6:00 p.m., Theater 2, T2
Saturno Contro (Saturn in Opposition). 2007. Italy. Screenplay by Ferzan Ozpetek, Gianni Romoli
Saturn in Opposition. 2007. Italy. Directed by Ferzan Ozpetek
Saturno Contro (Saturn in Opposition). 2007. Italy. Directed by Ferzan Ozpetek. Screenplay by Ferzan Ozpetek, Gianni Romoli. With Pierfrancesco Favino, Margherita Buy, Stefano Accorsi. Characteristic of Ozpetek's sophisticated approach to modern society and the complex ties that bind, Saturn in Opposition portrays a large, diverse circle of intimate friends centering around a gay couple, Davide and Lorenzo. When a tragedy brings them all together, the friends struggle to find solidarity beyond their selfish, everyday preoccupations. The warmth and depth of their multiple emotional bonds is confidently orchestrated and expressively choreographed by Ozpetek and his ace ensemble cast. In Italian; English subtitles. 113 min.
Sunday, December 7, 2008, 5:00 p.m., Theater 1, T1
Wednesday, December 10, 2008, 8:30 p.m., Theater 2, T2
December 4–14, 2008
One of the most successful and award-winning contemporary Italian filmmakers, Ferzan Ozpetek (b. 1959, Istanbul) creates films that display a unique thematic focus while remaining ambitious in scope and richly rewarding in their technical achievement. Effortlessly elegant, his aesthetic rarely calls attention to itself; his films masterfully illuminate various strains of society and strands of storytelling, and his actors shine in beautifully written, multifaceted parts that embrace an unforced multiculturalism. Ozpetek's films are often rooted in the tradition of the sophisticated melodramas of the 1950s, pivoting around seemingly ordinary and content people whose lives become unmoored—often by a sudden death—leading to the discovery of previously unacknowledged passions and possibilities.
The filmmaker's signature tracking camera stunningly unites disparate time periods (as in Facing Windows and Harem) and distant locales (Italy and Turkey), and creates a visual connection between Ozpetek's central characters and the extended families they discover, whether in close friendships (Saturn in Opposition), in communal living (His Secret Life), or in caring for those in need (Sacred Heart, Facing Windows). His is a humanistic cinema in which the kindness of strangers is the most readily available because—as the Sister Sledge song puts it—"We are family."
Organized by Jytte Jensen, Curator, the Department of Film, and Camilla Cormanni and Paola Ruggiero, Cinecittà Holding, Rome. The exhibition features new prints courtesy of Cinecittà Holding. Grateful thanks to the producers and distributors: Domenico Procacci of Fandango, RAI Cinema, Medusa Film, Mikado Film, Gianluca Curti of Minerva Pictures, Tilde Corsi and Gianni Romoli of R&C Production, Sony Pictures Classics, and Strand Releasing. The series is made possible thanks to the support of the Italian Ministry of Culture, Cinema Department, in collaboration with The Italian Cultural Institute, New York, the Moon and Stars Project, The American Turkish Society, and Peuterey. Additional thanks to the Italian Consulate, New York, Moleskine, Laura Delli Colli, Antonio Monda, Mondadori, Moira Mazzantini, Lula Sarchioni, Emanuela Di Suni, Gioia Donati, and Gianni Giansanti for their kind collaboration.
Le fate ignoranti (His Secret Life). 2001. Italy. Screenplay by Ferzan Ozpetek, Gianni Romoli
His Secret Life. 2001. Italy. Directed by Ferzan Ozpetek
Le fate ignoranti (His Secret Life). 2001. Italy. Directed by Ferzan Ozpetek. Screenplay by Ferzan Ozpetek, Gianni Romoli. With Margherita Buy, Stefano Accorsi, Serra Yilmaz. When Antonia's husband is suddenly killed in a car accident, she discovers that he led a second life. Obsessed with her husband's secrets, she finds his other lover and their circle of friends, and becomes intrigued with their rooftop "commune." The messy, quarrelsome, compassionate, colorful, and fun characters from her husband's parallel life challenge her well-ordered existence and fixed worldview. In Italian; English subtitles. 105 min.
Thursday, December 4, 2008, 7:00 p.m., Theater 1, T1 (Introduced by Ozpetek and Stefano Accorsi)
Friday, December 12, 2008, 9:00 p.m., Theater 2, T2
Un giorno perfetto (A Perfect Day). 2008. Italy. Directed by Ferzan Ozpetek. With Isabella Ferrari, Valerio Mastandrea, Stefania Sandrelli. Ozpetek's latest film is based—uncharacteristically for the director—on a popular novel. In this multifaceted narrative encompassing domestic violence, political corruption, youthful rebellion, and class differences in a modern city, a day of events and encounters leads to an irrevocably pitch-dark end (the film's title is highly ironic). The ferocious—mostly wordless—climactic scenes are filmed in extreme close-up, brilliantly capturing the actors' exceptional performances. In Italian; English subtitles. 101 min.
Friday, December 5, 2008, 6:00 p.m., Theater 1, T1 (U.S. premiere. Introduced by Ozpetek, actress Isabella Ferrari, and Laura Delli Colli, author of Ferzan Ozpetek: Eyes Wide Open. Followed by a Q&A with Ozpetek and Ferrari)
Saturday, December 13, 2008, 4:00 p.m., Theater 2, T2 (U.S. premiere)
La finestra di fronte (Facing Windows). 2003. Italy. Screenplay by Ferzan Ozpetek, Gianni Romoli
Facing Windows. 2003. Italy. Directed by Ferzan Ozpetek
La finestra di fronte (Facing Windows). 2003. Italy. Directed by Ferzan Ozpetek. Screenplay by Ferzan Ozpetek, Gianni Romoli. With Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Massimo Girotti, Raoul Bova. This beautifully constructed tale links a pair of Roman love stories: one set in the 1940s, the other among the newly constructed buildings on the outskirts of modern-day Rome. Giovanna and her husband take in an old man suffering from temporary amnesia who is obsessed with memories from the autumn of 1943. The man's story of forbidden love parallels Giovanna's unhappiness in her marriage and her obsession with the handsome stranger that she spies on from across the street. In Italian; English subtitles. 106 min.
Friday, December 5, 2008, 8:15 p.m., Theater 1, T1 (Introduced by Ozpetek and Laura Delli Colli, author of Ferzan Ozpetek: Eyes Wide Open. Followed by a Q&A with Ozpetek)
Sunday, December 14, 2008, 1:00 p.m., Theater 2, T2
Il bagno turco/Hamam (Steam: The Turkish Bath). 1997. Italy/ Turkey/Spain. Screenplay by Ferzan Ozpetek
Steam: The Turkish Bath. 1997. Italy/Turkey/Spain. Directed by Ferzan Ozpetek
Il bagno turco/Hamam (Steam: The Turkish Bath). 1997. Italy/Turkey/Spain. Directed by Ferzan Ozpetek. Screenplay by Ferzan Ozpetek. With Alessandro Gassman, Francesca d'Aloja, Carlo Cecchi. When Francesco's aunt dies in Istanbul, he leaves his wife in charge of their small design company in Rome and travels to Turkey to sell his inheritance—a traditional hamam (Turkish bath). Smitten with the hamam and the family that runs it, Francesco soon decides to remain in Turkey. When his wife arrives to deliver important news, she discovers a different Francesco. Handled with delicate care and great insight into the slow burn of buried passions, Ozpetek's first feature is a compassionate visual exploration of cultural and sexual barriers. In Italian, Turkish; English subtitles. 94 min.
Saturday, December 6, 2008, 3:00 p.m., Theater 1, T1
Sunday, December 14, 2008, 3:00 p.m., Theater 2, T2
Cuore Sacro (Sacred Heart). 2005. Italy. Screenplay by Ferzan Ozpetek, Gianni Romoli
Sacred Heart. 2005. Italy. Directed by Ferzan Ozpetek
Cuore Sacro (Sacred Heart). 2005. Italy. Directed by Ferzan Ozpetek. Screenplay by Ferzan Ozpetek, Gianni Romoli. With Barbora Bobulova, Andrea Di Stefano, Lisa Gastoni. Irene, a successful property developer with few personal connections, is thrown into turmoil when she begins restorations on her inheritance, the former residence of the mother she barely knew. As visits to her mother's old room and encounters with a persistent street kid start to get under her skin, her well-ordered world begins to show cracks. Bobulova's excellent performance as the steel-hearted heiress who gives fate a chance brings a complex psychological portrait to vivid life. In Italian; English subtitles. 116 min.
Saturday, December 6, 2008, 5:00 p.m., Theater 1, T1
Friday, December 12, 2008, 4:30 p.m., Theater 2, T2
Harem suaré (Harem). 1999. Italy/France/Turkey. Directed by Ferzan Ozpetek. Screenplay by Ferzan Ozpetek, Gianni Romoli. With Marie Gillain, Alex Descas, Valeria Golino. Safiye, the favorite concubine of the last sultan of the Ottoman Empire, falls in love with a black eunuch and is left behind to fight for the rights of the harem when the deposed sultan escapes to Europe. The complex narrative structure of this sumptuous story within a story mirrors traditional Oriental oral storytelling, and the opulent sets and costumes are shot with exceptional style and beauty. In Turkish, Italian; English subtitles. 105 min.
Sunday, December 7, 2008, 3:00 p.m., Theater 1, T1
Thursday, December 11, 2008, 6:00 p.m., Theater 2, T2
Saturno Contro (Saturn in Opposition). 2007. Italy. Screenplay by Ferzan Ozpetek, Gianni Romoli
Saturn in Opposition. 2007. Italy. Directed by Ferzan Ozpetek
Saturno Contro (Saturn in Opposition). 2007. Italy. Directed by Ferzan Ozpetek. Screenplay by Ferzan Ozpetek, Gianni Romoli. With Pierfrancesco Favino, Margherita Buy, Stefano Accorsi. Characteristic of Ozpetek's sophisticated approach to modern society and the complex ties that bind, Saturn in Opposition portrays a large, diverse circle of intimate friends centering around a gay couple, Davide and Lorenzo. When a tragedy brings them all together, the friends struggle to find solidarity beyond their selfish, everyday preoccupations. The warmth and depth of their multiple emotional bonds is confidently orchestrated and expressively choreographed by Ozpetek and his ace ensemble cast. In Italian; English subtitles. 113 min.
Sunday, December 7, 2008, 5:00 p.m., Theater 1, T1
Wednesday, December 10, 2008, 8:30 p.m., Theater 2, T2
Review | Times And Winds
Times And Winds (Bes Vakit)
Cert: 15
Evening Standard review by Derek Malcolm
Dir: Reha Erdem. Cast: Ozkan Ozen, Ali Bey Kayali, Elit Iscan, Selma Ergec, Tarik Sonmez
Description: Vivid portrait of the hopes and dreams of three youngsters who live in a remote Turkish hillside community on the country's northwest coast. Omer, best pal Yakup and Yildiz hang out together after school, chewing over their humdrum routines and the people shaping their futures, including their beautiful teacher and the local shepherd boy Davut with a secret crush. An ill wind blows across the hillside, compelling the youngters to make difficult decisions.
Country: TURK. 2006. 111mins
Village people in Times and Winds
By Derek Malcolm, Evening Standard 28.08.08
Though painfully slow to ignite and poetically portentous on occasions, Reha Erdem’s film about three children growing up in a remote Anatolian village, isolated by high mountains, has an impressive edge to it. It is shot with great care for the harsh beauty of the terrain, and seeks to show us both the travails of daily existence and the pain of adolescence.
Omer, the son of the sick local imam, wishes for the death of a father who prefers his daughter to himself. He’s quite willing to force the issue by secretly throwing away his medicine. Yacob has a crush on his young teacher and begins to feel the same way as Omer when he catches his father spying on her. Yildiz, being a girl, has to see to household chores as well as studying.
The village scene is painted with a kind of resignation that seems to believe that the rhythms of the seasons and the five daily calls to prayer have a formative impact on its young characters, even at play on the mountains. Erdem’s film is nothing if not ruminative and always beautiful to look at.
Cert: 15
Evening Standard review by Derek Malcolm
Dir: Reha Erdem. Cast: Ozkan Ozen, Ali Bey Kayali, Elit Iscan, Selma Ergec, Tarik Sonmez
Description: Vivid portrait of the hopes and dreams of three youngsters who live in a remote Turkish hillside community on the country's northwest coast. Omer, best pal Yakup and Yildiz hang out together after school, chewing over their humdrum routines and the people shaping their futures, including their beautiful teacher and the local shepherd boy Davut with a secret crush. An ill wind blows across the hillside, compelling the youngters to make difficult decisions.
Country: TURK. 2006. 111mins
Village people in Times and Winds
By Derek Malcolm, Evening Standard 28.08.08
Though painfully slow to ignite and poetically portentous on occasions, Reha Erdem’s film about three children growing up in a remote Anatolian village, isolated by high mountains, has an impressive edge to it. It is shot with great care for the harsh beauty of the terrain, and seeks to show us both the travails of daily existence and the pain of adolescence.
Omer, the son of the sick local imam, wishes for the death of a father who prefers his daughter to himself. He’s quite willing to force the issue by secretly throwing away his medicine. Yacob has a crush on his young teacher and begins to feel the same way as Omer when he catches his father spying on her. Yildiz, being a girl, has to see to household chores as well as studying.
The village scene is painted with a kind of resignation that seems to believe that the rhythms of the seasons and the five daily calls to prayer have a formative impact on its young characters, even at play on the mountains. Erdem’s film is nothing if not ruminative and always beautiful to look at.
Times and Winds | DVD Review
Times and Winds
Kino // Unrated // July 15, 2008
List Price: $29.95
Review by Jamie S. Rich | posted July 5, 2008 |
THE MOVIE:
Slowly paced films have a strange, ironic quality in that despite the glacial pace at which their narratives move, they are often the films that pass the fastest when you are watching them. It's as if the demand they place on you as a viewer is so great, you become even more immersed in the story than you do when the picture is moving at a constant sprint. So focused are you on digesting every small morsel it has to offer, the closing credits come on before you even have a chance to check your watch.
The Turkish movie Times and Winds has this kind of time-warp sensation. Set in a predominantly Muslim mountain village, writer/director Reha Erdem's 2007 feature borrows the ambling pace of rural life at high altitudes. Following the adolescent struggles of three teenagers, Erdem captures the predicament of youth perfectly, creating the simultaneous feeling that life will never move forward and that everything is slipping away faster than you can control.
All three of the children in Times and Winds are at the juncture of growing up where they are becoming aware of the adult world and its pleasures, and that there might be more to the world beyond the confines of their hometown. They want to experience these new discoveries and to express themselves for who they are, but their parents are too busy placing restrictions on them. Cigarettes are too mature for them, for instance, but they are expected to help with work, look after younger siblings, and appear for their daily prayers. They can't be childish, but they won't be given the rewards of adulthood, either.
Of the three teenagers, two are boys and one is a girl. Of the boys, Omer (Özkan Özen) is ostensibly the leader. His father is the head of the village church, and both of Omer's parents dote on his younger brother as a way of calling attention to their eldest son's faults. Omer dreams of the day he will be free of his father, and when the old man becomes sick, he tries whatever he can--opening his bedroom window at night, emptying his medicine--to help the illness win. When that's not fast enough, Omer dreams of other forms of patricide, weighing the consequence of the sin against the benefits of the result.
In contrast, Omer's slow-witted friend Yakup (Ali Bey Kayali), like most boys his age, is obsessed with sex. He dreams of his teacher (Selma Ergeç), whom he clearly has a crush on, but his inability to talk about it would lead us to believe that he doesn't really know what sex is. Though all of the children see the animals in their village go at it from time to time, they giggle at what they don't understand. Yakup is so embarrassed, in fact, he chases off Yildiz (Elit Iscan) when he realizes that she is also there when he and Omer are watching donkeys have sex. Not that Yildiz has much interest in growing into a woman. She has been placed in the role of caretaker too early, stuck babysitting when she'd rather be out enjoying the world. She is also leery of what goes on behind her parents' closed bedroom door.
The animals copulating are shown to us in contrast to the images of death that Erdem peppers throughout Times and Winds. The teens live in a natural environment where the cycle of life is always on display. On one end, Omer's father and Yildiz's grandmother are both showing their mortality; on the other, Yakup's mother is about to have another child. Erdem creates a world of dualities. Omer in contrast to his younger brother is mirrored in Yakup's father being seen as less capable next to his brother. By extension, this shows the conflict between the generations is ongoing. Yakup's grandfather orders his sons to build a stone wall outside the garden they inherited from him; ever since that gift, however, he has made sure the men are beholden to him, and as soon as the wall is built, he dismantles it, declaring it's not good enough. Yakup is eventually torn between the shame for his father's humiliation in such situations and the betrayal of realizing he really is a nincompoop, catching the older man peeping through the teacher's window.
Unlike the sturm und drang of western films about adolescent angst, Erdem infuses Time and Winds with a quieter melancholy. These kids are restless and they want to lash out, but they aren't particularly destructive; life hasn't yet taught them to be. Though they see some violence among the adults, they don't mimic it. Even Omer's murderous daydreaming is free of any actual blood, stopping short at the moment of action. Instead, the yearning fantasies of the trio show how far beyond childhood they have been pushed. Erdem's images of death are merely the teens lying in the dirt and the brush, as if asleep, covered by rocks and leaves like they have been there for some time, the natural way of things overtaking their prone bodies. It's an approach that goes counter to the normal suicide fantasies of troubled adolescence. They are more like older folk, tired and wanting to lay down. Thus, Erdem chooses to show us time in reverse. Rather than have Times and Winds be one long night of the soul, waiting for dawn to break and all that comes with it, the director moves us back through the day, taking the long way around as it were, as if his children have to regress to reclaim their childhood. Thus, the on-screen chapter breaks go from night, to early afternoon, noon, and then morning.
One other element of note in Times and Winds is the marvelous musical score by composer Arvo Pärt, whose moving music has been used in movies like The Thin Red Line and The Good Shepherd even when he's not the one responsible for the score. For Time and Winds, he creates a vivid soundscape that adds a grandiosity to the subdued images. In his emotionally weighty orchestration, he is able to express the seething power of the turmoil that the teenagers have no outlet for, working hand-in-hand with Erdem's measured visual style to draw the sadness and the longing from the situation. While most of the time the best scores work subliminally without the audience really being aware of the magic the musicians are creating, this is one of those rare cases where there is nothing wrong with taking a moment to just enjoy the sounds for what they have to offer.
Kino // Unrated // July 15, 2008
List Price: $29.95
Review by Jamie S. Rich | posted July 5, 2008 |
THE MOVIE:
Slowly paced films have a strange, ironic quality in that despite the glacial pace at which their narratives move, they are often the films that pass the fastest when you are watching them. It's as if the demand they place on you as a viewer is so great, you become even more immersed in the story than you do when the picture is moving at a constant sprint. So focused are you on digesting every small morsel it has to offer, the closing credits come on before you even have a chance to check your watch.
The Turkish movie Times and Winds has this kind of time-warp sensation. Set in a predominantly Muslim mountain village, writer/director Reha Erdem's 2007 feature borrows the ambling pace of rural life at high altitudes. Following the adolescent struggles of three teenagers, Erdem captures the predicament of youth perfectly, creating the simultaneous feeling that life will never move forward and that everything is slipping away faster than you can control.
All three of the children in Times and Winds are at the juncture of growing up where they are becoming aware of the adult world and its pleasures, and that there might be more to the world beyond the confines of their hometown. They want to experience these new discoveries and to express themselves for who they are, but their parents are too busy placing restrictions on them. Cigarettes are too mature for them, for instance, but they are expected to help with work, look after younger siblings, and appear for their daily prayers. They can't be childish, but they won't be given the rewards of adulthood, either.
Of the three teenagers, two are boys and one is a girl. Of the boys, Omer (Özkan Özen) is ostensibly the leader. His father is the head of the village church, and both of Omer's parents dote on his younger brother as a way of calling attention to their eldest son's faults. Omer dreams of the day he will be free of his father, and when the old man becomes sick, he tries whatever he can--opening his bedroom window at night, emptying his medicine--to help the illness win. When that's not fast enough, Omer dreams of other forms of patricide, weighing the consequence of the sin against the benefits of the result.
In contrast, Omer's slow-witted friend Yakup (Ali Bey Kayali), like most boys his age, is obsessed with sex. He dreams of his teacher (Selma Ergeç), whom he clearly has a crush on, but his inability to talk about it would lead us to believe that he doesn't really know what sex is. Though all of the children see the animals in their village go at it from time to time, they giggle at what they don't understand. Yakup is so embarrassed, in fact, he chases off Yildiz (Elit Iscan) when he realizes that she is also there when he and Omer are watching donkeys have sex. Not that Yildiz has much interest in growing into a woman. She has been placed in the role of caretaker too early, stuck babysitting when she'd rather be out enjoying the world. She is also leery of what goes on behind her parents' closed bedroom door.
The animals copulating are shown to us in contrast to the images of death that Erdem peppers throughout Times and Winds. The teens live in a natural environment where the cycle of life is always on display. On one end, Omer's father and Yildiz's grandmother are both showing their mortality; on the other, Yakup's mother is about to have another child. Erdem creates a world of dualities. Omer in contrast to his younger brother is mirrored in Yakup's father being seen as less capable next to his brother. By extension, this shows the conflict between the generations is ongoing. Yakup's grandfather orders his sons to build a stone wall outside the garden they inherited from him; ever since that gift, however, he has made sure the men are beholden to him, and as soon as the wall is built, he dismantles it, declaring it's not good enough. Yakup is eventually torn between the shame for his father's humiliation in such situations and the betrayal of realizing he really is a nincompoop, catching the older man peeping through the teacher's window.
Unlike the sturm und drang of western films about adolescent angst, Erdem infuses Time and Winds with a quieter melancholy. These kids are restless and they want to lash out, but they aren't particularly destructive; life hasn't yet taught them to be. Though they see some violence among the adults, they don't mimic it. Even Omer's murderous daydreaming is free of any actual blood, stopping short at the moment of action. Instead, the yearning fantasies of the trio show how far beyond childhood they have been pushed. Erdem's images of death are merely the teens lying in the dirt and the brush, as if asleep, covered by rocks and leaves like they have been there for some time, the natural way of things overtaking their prone bodies. It's an approach that goes counter to the normal suicide fantasies of troubled adolescence. They are more like older folk, tired and wanting to lay down. Thus, Erdem chooses to show us time in reverse. Rather than have Times and Winds be one long night of the soul, waiting for dawn to break and all that comes with it, the director moves us back through the day, taking the long way around as it were, as if his children have to regress to reclaim their childhood. Thus, the on-screen chapter breaks go from night, to early afternoon, noon, and then morning.
One other element of note in Times and Winds is the marvelous musical score by composer Arvo Pärt, whose moving music has been used in movies like The Thin Red Line and The Good Shepherd even when he's not the one responsible for the score. For Time and Winds, he creates a vivid soundscape that adds a grandiosity to the subdued images. In his emotionally weighty orchestration, he is able to express the seething power of the turmoil that the teenagers have no outlet for, working hand-in-hand with Erdem's measured visual style to draw the sadness and the longing from the situation. While most of the time the best scores work subliminally without the audience really being aware of the magic the musicians are creating, this is one of those rare cases where there is nothing wrong with taking a moment to just enjoy the sounds for what they have to offer.
Review | A Youthful Awakening to Mother Nature’s Laws in a Turkish Village
Movie Review
Times and Winds (2006)
Kino International
Ozkan Ozen, left, and Ali Bey Kayali in “Times and Winds.”January 11, 2008
A Youthful Awakening to Mother Nature’s Laws in a Turkish Village
By STEPHEN HOLDEN
Published: January 11, 2008
Livestock far outnumber humans in “Times and Winds,” Reha Erdem’s transporting vision of life in a mountain village in northwest Turkey as seen through the eyes of three children on the verge of adolescence. Make no mistake: The movie, for all its majestic shots of the rocky landscape and of the moon skittering behind clouds, is not a lump-in-your-throat portrait of the noble poor living in harmony with the elements.
Even in this remote hamlet untouched by television, human nature is what it is. The two boys, the best friends Omer (Ozkan Ozen) and Yakup (Ali Bey Kayali), and one girl, Yildiz (Elit Iscan), whose day-to-day lives the movie observes with an affectionate detachment, giggle and point at the spectacle of animals mating.
Within their families there is an ugly heritage of generational strife. Because Omer’s strict, ailing father (Bulent Emin Yarar), the village imam, prefers Omer’s younger brother, Omer devoutly wishes his father dead.
While his parents are asleep, he steals into their room and opens a window over their bed, hoping the night air will aggravate his father’s severe respiratory problems. He surreptitiously pulls apart and empties the capsules prescribed for his father’s condition. He even traps a poisonous scorpion he intends to unleash on his father, but it dies.
There is a scene of a frustrated farmer beating a horse and another of an old man attacking his son for stealing nuts from a tree. Yildiz is treated like a servant by her mother. Yakup has a secret infatuation with the village teacher (Selma Ergec), a beautiful young woman whom the villagers reward with regular deliveries of milk and bread. The boy is crushed when he comes upon his father peeping at her through a window of her house. The scene of the son spying on the father spying on the woman rubs in the fact that this is no Garden of Eden.
The teacher’s lessons about the Earth’s rotation, light, heat and the water cycle reflect the film’s focus on the intersection of daily life with the laws of nature. Its absence of high drama allows such primary forces to become its main subject. The film is organized around the five daily calls to Islamic prayer, chronologically reversed so that night is followed by evening, then afternoon, noon and dawn. As the sun rises at the end of the movie, this rearrangement of time simultaneously evokes the village’s unchanging way of life and the blind expectations of preadolescent children facing adulthood.
As in Iranian films that focus on childhood, the soundtrack of “Times and Winds” is filled with the stirrings of nature — the wind rushing through trees, animal sounds and bird song from near and far. Augmenting this pastoral symphony are excerpts from several pieces by Arvo Pärt (including the “Te Deum”) that add texture and gravity to the film. The music — lush but emotionally neutral and at times static — conjures eternal things.
For all its beauty, though, you couldn’t describe “Times and Winds” as uplifting, and its attitude toward childhood is not sentimental in the manner of similarly minimalist Iranian movies. Its vision of people in thrall to religious ritual and living at the mercy of nature may be poetic, but it is no idyll. The serpent has done its dirty work.
TIMES AND WINDS
Opens in Manhattan on Friday.
Written (in Turkish, with English subtitles), directed and edited by Reha Erdem; director of photography, Florent Herry; art director, Omer Atay; produced by Mr. Atay; released by Kino International. At the Anthology Film Archives, 32-34 Second Avenue, at Second Street, East Village. Running time: 1 hour 50 minutes. This film is not rated.
WITH: Ozkan Ozen (Omer), Ali Bey Kayali (Yakup), Elit Iscan (Yildiz), Bulent Emin Yarar (Imam), Taner Birsel (Zekeriya), Yigit Ozsener (Yusuf) and Selma Ergec (Teacher).
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Cairo 2008 | Turkish Films
32nd. Cairo International Film Festival
The International Feature Films Competition
The messenger | Ulak
SYNOPSIS: A mysterious stranger with lots of secrets and a lot to say in his tales pays a visit to a village where people are desperate because of the fear and cruelty they have been suffering. Will the stranger give them hopes to overcome their fears? What are people afraid of? Are sins and crimes punished sooner or later?
Director : Cagan Irmak
Cast : Çetin Tekindor, Hümeyra , Yetkin Dikinciler, Şerif Sezer
Production : Avsar Film - 2008
Time : 102min
Official Selection: Out of Competition
Three Monkeys | Director :Nuri Bilge Ceylan
International competition for Digital Feature Films
Dot | Director : Dervis Zaim
Human Rights Films
Hidden Faces | Director :Handan Ipekci
Havar | Director :Mehmet Guleruz
Refugee | Director :Reis Celik
Sunday, November 16, 2008
N.B.Ceylan wins an Asia Pacific Screen Award
ASIA PACIFIC SCREEN AWARDS 2008 NOMINEES ANNOUNCED
17 ASIA-PACIFIC COUNTRIES REPRESENTED IN NINE AWARD CATEGORIES
Men Jeuk (Sparrow, Hong Kong), Om Shanti Om (India), Tulpan (Kazakhstan, Russia, Switzerland/Poland/Germany), Uc maymun (Three Monkeys, Turkey/France/Italy) and Hong Se Kang Bai Yin (The Red Awn, The People’s Republic of China) will vie for Best Feature Film in the Asia Pacific Screen Awards to be announced on the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia, on November 11.The Asia Pacific Screen Awards (the APSAs) – the region’s highest accolade in film in 2008 - has announced nominees in nine Award categories representing 33 films from 17 countries and areas of the Asia-Pacific region. They are Australia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Islamic Republic of Iran, Israel, Japan, Kazakhstan, Russian Federation, Lebanon, Qatar, New Zealand, People’s Republic of China, Philippines, Republic of Korea, Sri Lanka and Turkey.
Johnnie To’s Men Jeuk (Sparrow) has received four nominations - Best Feature Film, Achievement in Directing, Achievement in Cinematography and Best Performance by an Actor. Uc maymun (Three Monkeys), directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan, has received three nominations. [1]
“The nominees were determined from more than 180 films from 43 countries and areas entered in these, the second APSAs. We are greatly encouraged by the response from filmmakers from Asia-Pacific in our mission to acclaim their work and promote it to an international audience. Once again, the nominees showcase the tremendous talent and creativity that exists in the burgeoning film industries of the region,” said APSA Chairman Des Power.
The Asia Pacific Screen Awards – the APSAs – is a collaboration with CNN International, UNESCO and FIAPF – International Federation of Film Producers Associations and is an international cultural initiative to acclaim films that best reflect their cultural origins and demonstrate cinematic excellence.
[1]
APSA Nomination for Best Feature Film Uc Maymun’ (Three Monkeys) Turkey/France/Italy
Produced by Zeynep Özbatur. Co-Produced by Fabienne Vonier, Valerio De Paolis, Cemal Noyan, Nuri Bilge Ceylan | A family dislocated when small failings blow up into extravagant lies, battles against the odds to stay together by covering up the truth. In order to avoid hardship and responsibilities that would otherwise be impossible to endure, the family chooses to ignore the truth - not to see, hear or talk about it. But does playing ‘three monkeys’ invalidate the existence of truth?
APSA Nomination and Winner Achievement in Directing APSA for Achievement in Directing to Nuri Bilge Ceylan for ‘Uc Maymun’ (Three Monkeys) Turkey/France/Italy | Nuri Bilge Ceylan was born in Istanbul, Turkey in 1959. After graduating as an engineer from Bosphorus University, Istanbul, he studied filmmaking for two years at Mimar Sinan University, Istanbul. His credits include: Les Climats (2006) Uzak (2003) and Mayis Sikintisi (Clouds of May) (1999).
APSA Nomination for Achievement in Cinematography Gökhan Tiryaki for ‘Uc Maymun’ (Three Monkeys) Turkey/France/Italy | Gökhan Tiryaki was born in Istanbul, Turkey in 1972 and studied economics at Anadolu University. After graduating, Gökhan initially worked in the TV and documentary areas as a cameraman in Turkish radio and television and, since 1996, has been a Director of Photography and Steadycam operator for IMAJ. He has received several awards for his cinematography including Best Cinematography for Climates at the Thailand World Film Festival, 2006, and a Special Award of Mosfilm for Three Monkeys.
Interview | Film director Hüseyin Karabey
Film director Hüseyin Karabey
Claims that the film "Gitmek" (known in English as "My Marlon and Brando") was too "divisive" have led to its screenings in Switzerland being halted earlier this month. But on Friday, 20 copies of the cross-border love story hit the big screen in Turkish movie theaters.
This film, which has already collected such prizes as best film, best director and best actress at a variety of international film festivals, has a total of eight awards to its name. And this can be said about the work: "Gitmek" is absolutely not divisive; to the contrary, it highlights Turkish-Kurdish brotherhood.
The film is based on the story of a journey taken to Iraq during the war by a young Turkish woman named Ayça, who risks her life to see her Iraqi Kurdish love, Hama Ali. The fact that the screenplay is based on the real lives of the leading actors makes this film all the more interesting. This is the first feature-length film by director Hüseyin Karabey; the shooting of this film occurred over a total of 6,000 kilometers in Turkey, Iran and Iraq. We, of course, discussed Turkish-Kurdish tension with Karabey when we talked about his latest film. As a last point before moving on to our interview, it would be fair to note that though "My Marlon and Brando" is an art film, it is certainly neither boring nor slow.
What do you make of the statement from Minister of Culture Ertuğrul Günay, who said that the showings of "Gitmek" at the Swiss Culturescapes Art Festival had been banned because the film was divisive?
Well, actually, this was not the statement made by the minister. But that was what people inferred from that statement. In news about this incident, these were the words attributed to the minister, though.
Well, actually, the minister said: "We do not have a problem with this film. This film is already a part of the festival program." But some articles that appeared in Swiss newspapers carried quotes from different people in various regions of Turkey who said that they would not have allowed the film to be shown, which is why I never took any of this to be aimed at me. There is definitely no such divisiveness in this film. This is, after all, a film that received support from the Ministry of Culture and has passed through the most detailed inspections. In fact, there was not even any age limit placed on this film.
In any case, these recent developments have helped formed certain preconceptions about this film. How are you going to transcend these preconceptions?
I have spoken with high-placed authorities at the Ministry of Culture, who have assured me that in fact Ertuğrul Günay will be attending our gala showing in Ankara. This gala will be on either Nov. 24 or 26.
You say, "If only there were 10 films made like 'Gitmek,' the Kurdish problem in Turkey would be solved." As a cinematographer, how do you think the Kurdish problem could be solved?
Television series tend to portray Kurds as terrorists, narcotics smugglers or people who carry out honor killings. We need to talk about the Kurdish problem on a more real, human level. We need films that show Kurds and Turks living in equal conditions, so that people understand that both sides are people who can fall in love, who have senses of humor, who miss their children, who want the warring to end. All Kurds really want to achieve the same level of life they see others enjoying when they watch television; they really don't want anything else.
The people in the main roles are not types we are accustomed to seeing in films. One is a quite heavy woman, while the other is a bald man. Why did you make these choices for actors?
I wanted to turn all the clichés upside down. For me, the real heroes in life are us, the real people. I try to remind people of this, convince people of this. I am not going to create false heroes in my films. To wit, you notice that during the film, Ayça becomes more and more beautiful, and in fact you begin to become jealous of her love affair, and you begin to wish that you too could experience something like it.
Right up to the end of the film, the viewer doesn't see the conditions of war in which Hama Ali lives. Was this because of the difficulties in filming in that region, or for some other reason?
There is a different reason, actually. In the film, we always view Hama Ali through Ayça's screen. This is actually a criticism of our perception of reality these days. … These days, we make do with what we see on our monitors. We no longer seem to say, "Let me go and see what actually happened there." Also, I wanted to make the action of Ayça going to Iraq form some question marks in the viewers' minds. Like, "Is it worth it for this man? Is this man really giving it his best effort? Is it really difficult to get from Turkey into Iraq?" Because if the man awaiting her on the other side had been some sort of Brad Pitt type, I have no doubt everyone would have jumped at this journey! I think what is important in life is not who you love, but how you love.
In the news, we read that while people pass from the north of Iraq into Turkey, that the reverse is impossible. While Ayça attempts the impossible, Hama Ali says in his video to her that as soon as the borders are opened, he will walk all the way to be by her side. Is this a mistake in the plot? Or are we to understand that Hama Ali does not love her as much as she loves him?
Actually, there is not enough information provided in the film at that point. I should have underscored this more clearly. You are not the first person to ask this question, and you are clearly a careful viewer. It is impossible for Iraqis to go back and forth between Iraq and Turkey. As for Turks, they do have permission to pass from Iraq back into Turkey. But Turks do not have permission to go from Turkey into Iraq.
In one part of the film, we hear the words, "The Americans are killing the Arabs, and the Arabs are killing each other and the Kurds. The Kurds are afraid of being killed as Saddam did to them in 1991." Are the Kurds as pure as all this?
No, definitely not. In fact, the film contains criticism of Kurdish leadership because there is no meaning to savior and freedom that comes from another's hand. In the end, forces may come and stay for a while in your land, but the same pressures put on by Saddam will be exerted by another this time around. Hama Ali is living out these conflicts on his insides. He is afraid that what happened to the Kurds in 1991 will happen again. In the end, this is the result of mistaken decisions taken by their politicians.
A chauffeur from Diyarbakır is talking to Ayça as though he knows absolutely nothing about Istanbul, and asks her "Do they ask for passports in İstanbul?" Then he adds: "I am from Diyarbakır, but they ask us for our identification. It's a crime if you have one and crime if you don't!" What is it that you are trying to explain here? I understand how not carrying your identification around with you could be a crime, but how could it be a crime to have your ID with you?
With these words, I wanted to portray some of the pressures that Kurds experience in daily life. There is no one who doesn't know that when certain [violent] incidents take place in Istanbul, police stop people to check their identity cards and that it is always the citizens from the East who are taken under arrest. In this sense, whether or not you have your identity card with you, there is no way to avoid being arrested. If what we are talking about divisiveness, this derives directly from the fact that the state itself does not treat its citizens equally. The anger of the chauffeur is this: "You come and go from over there. But did you know, around here, it's not so easy. No matter what we do, it's difficult. No matter what we do, we are guilty!" Automatically seeing certain factions as potentially guilty in a number of situations opens the way to great anger. And what I am most afraid of is this anger exploding. That anger, which still hasn't exploded despite all the provocation that has occurred, if it does in fact explode one day, there will be very bad things that happen here in Turkey. Because some people no longer have anything left to lose: no village, no home, no work, belittled every day … With this film, I am saying, "Be a little different from the others, try to understand the spiritual state your brothers and sisters are in, support them." This film really says "The real problem facing the people living in the East is how they are supposed to live dignified daily lives. There is really no other request on the table, be aware of this." I believe that the moment people really become aware of this, peace will settle permanently in Turkey.
When he sees images of mountains in his video, Hama Ali says, "The mountains are the friends of Kurds." After that, he shows a photograph of himself from when he was 23 years old, saying that at that time he was a peshmerga. Won't these things disturb Turkish viewers?
Well, I think that if a viewer is determined to find something wrong or disturbing about the film, they will find it in the end, no matter what. We need to allow an approach which is on the side of friendship, peace and talking about the brotherhood between these two peoples. If you are trying to prove a certain point, of course you can perceive certain things I say, or certain things you see in the film, as proving your point. But of course, this should not be my goal, nor yours either.
It is quite clear that this film is not in fact divisive. But there are unsettling details in this film.
Well, for 92 minutes, this film does talk about gigantic topics. You are not, for example, mentioning the words spoken by the Kurdish mother. If you put the spotlight on these words, which are about peace, then this is what the viewer will watch out for. I am defending this film, which is why I have invited the Ministry of Culture to attend the gala opening.
Is the love between Ayça and Hama Ali, who risk death for this love, still ongoing?
The war does not allow this love to live on. Their relationship turns into a very close friendship. If they weren't such good friends, we would never have been able to make this film.
That whole "I don't want a Kurdish son-in-law" or "I can't imagine having a Turkish daughter-in-law" mentality continues in Turkey even today. Why? How do we get over this?
Well, to prevent peace just because certain people don't want it is stupid. This is actually a kind of special wealth; it's from God that we have become so intertwined. If it weren't for the rising tides of nationalism we have seen over these past five years, no one would even be thinking these things. We need to share with each other the richness that our mutual existences provide. Actually, I do believe that an incredible level of peace and brotherhood really does exist on this soil.
16 November 2008, Sunday
SERKAN KARA İSTANBUL
Friday, November 14, 2008
Thessaloniki 49 | Three Monkeys by Nuri Bilğe Ceylan
| Three Monkeys / Nuri Bilğe Ceylan | |
| |
| Nuri Bilğe Ceylan | |
| Ebru Ceylan, Ercan Kesal, Nuri Bilğe | |
| Gökhan Tiryaki | |
| Ayhan Ergürsel, Bora Gökşingöl, Nuri Bilğe Ceylan | |
| Murat Şenürkmez | |
| Ebru Ceylan | |
| Yavuz Bingöl (Eyüp), Hatice Aslan (Hacer), Ahmet Rıfat Şungar (İsmail), Ercan Kesal (Servet), Cafer Köse (Bayram), Gürkan Aydın (child) | |
| Pyramide Films, France T. + 33 1 4296 0101 F. +33 1 4020 0221 www.pyramidefilms.com | |
| Rosebud T. +30 210 6786505 F. +30 210 6755067 fint@hvh.com.gr www.odeon.com | |
| Zeynep Özbatur, Fabienne Vonier, Valerio De Paolis, Cemal Noyan, Nuri Bilğe Ceylan | |
| Zeyno Film & Pyramide Films & Bim Distribuzione NBC Film & IMAJ | |
| Turkey, France, Italy | |
| 35mm Color | |
| 109' | |
| 2008 | |
A family dislocated when small failings blow up into extravagant lies, battles against the odds to stay together by covering up the truth... In order to avoid hardship and responsibilities that would otherwise be impossible to endure, the family chooses to ignore the truth, not to see, hear or talk about it. But does playing Three Monkeys invalidate the truth of its existence?Nuri Bilğe Ceylan
| Director |
| Nuri Bilğe Ceylan |
 Filmography 1995 Koza/Cocoon (short) 1997 Kasaba/Small Town 1999 Mayis sikintisi/Clouds of May 2002 Uzak/Distant 2006 Iklimler/Climates 2008 Üç Maymun/Three Monkeys Biography He was born in Istanbul in 1959, but grew up in the country. He studied Filmmaking at Mimar Sinan University in Istanbul. "Small Town", was screened at festivals around the world and won numerous awards. "Distant" won many national and international awards, including the Grand Jury Prize and the Best Actor Award at the Cannes IFF. "Climates", won the FIPRESCI Prize at Cannes IFF 2006, while "Three Monkeys" won the award for Best Director at Cannes IFF 2008. |
Thessaloniki 49 | Süt by Semih Kaplanoğlu
| Süt / Semih Kaplanoğlu | |
| |
| Semih Kaplanoğlu | |
| Semih Kaplanoğlu, Orçun Köksal | |
| Özgür Eken | |
| François Quiqueré | |
| Marc Nouyrigat | |
| Naz Erayda | |
| Melih Selçuk (Yusuf), Başak Köklükaya (Zehra), Şerif Erol (Station Master), Rıza Akın (professor), Saadet Işıl Aksoy (Semra) | |
| The Match Factory Germany T. +49 221 539 709-0 F. +49 221 539 709-10 info@matchfactory.de www.the-match-factory.com | |
| Semih Kaplanoğlu | |
| Kaplan Film Production | |
| Turkey, France, Germany | |
| Arizona Films, Heimatfilm | |
| 35mm Color | |
| 102' | |
| 2008 | |
Young Yusuf, 18-years-old, is disconcerted when he learns that his mother Fatma, 40- years-old, is having a secret affair with the town’s railroad stationmaster. Should he behave in accordance with the traditional male-dominated culture and traditions of the town or should he develop a new perspective that goes along with the new modernization process that is on-going in the area?Semih Kaplanoğlu
| Director |
| Semih Kaplanoğlu |
 Filmography 1984 Mobapp (short) 1993 Asansör/Elevator (short) 2000 Herkes kendi evinde/Away From Home 2004 Meleğin Düşüşü/Angel’s Fall 2007 Yumurta/Egg 2008 Süt/Milk Biography Hewas born in Smyrna, Turkey in 1963 and received a degree in Film and Television from Dokuz Eylül University, Smyrna in 1984. His debut feature film, "Away From Home", has won many awards. His second feature film, "Angel’s Fall", had its World Premiere at the 55th Berlin FF, and was screened at the Thessaloniki IFF in 2005. "Egg" is the first part of a trilogy called "Egg-Milk-Honey". "Egg" was invited to the Director’s Fortnight at the Cannes IFF 2007, while the second part of his trilogy, "Süt", received production support from the World Cinema Fund of the Berlinale. |
Thessaloniki 49 | Shell by Uygar Asan
| Shell / Uygar Asan | |
| |
| Uygar Asan | |
| Uygar Asan | |
| Uygar Asan | |
| Uygar Asan | |
| Tolga Çelik | |
| Tolga Çelik | |
| Anita Sezgener, Nilay Kacar | |
| Sezgin Cengiz (Burhan), Ayşe Bayramoğlu (the girl working in the laundry), Tolga İskit (Burhan’s friend at the post office) | |
| Yeşil Karinca Video Düş Laboratuvari, Turkey Uygar Asan T. +90 216 550 1142 yesilkarinca@yahoo.com www.yesilkarinca.com | |
| Uygar Asan | |
| Yeşil Karinca Video Düş Laboratuvari | |
| Turkey | |
| Digibeta Color | |
| 100' | |
| 2007 | |
Burhan a young man in his mid-twenties, works at the post office. His job is allocating the incoming letters according to their addresses. He lives alone. His mother and sister are dead. His father is a retired army officer who is now a senile and lives in a clinic. He likes a girl that he has never disclosed his feelings to. He has his own way of building a relationship with her that causes him trouble. Despite the troubles he faces, he manages to go on with his life thanks to a letter addressed to someone else. Burhan will start behaving in an strange manner and he will pose as someone else through this letter. What will this new situation bring? Will the “shell” that Burhan lives in break? Will he find a way out from his alienated life?Uygar Asan
| Director |
| Uygar Asan |
 Filmography 1995 13 (short) 2003 Where is the House of the Wind? (short) 2003 Perpetuum Immobile (short) 2003 Leap into the Void: İlhan Usmanbaş 2005 Winter Garden 2007 Kabuk/Shell Biography He was born in Isparta in 1967 and studied at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts Faculty Cinema-TV Department for two years. From 1995 until 2002, he worked in various jobs except cinema. During these years he was only interested in literature, and published poems and writings. By the year 2003 he started to write and direct his own films. He lives in Istanbul. |
Thessaloniki 49 | Pandora’s Box by Yeşim Ustaoğlu
| Pandora’s Box / Yeşim Ustaoğlu | |
| |
| Yeşim Ustaoğlu | |
| Yeşim Ustaoğlu, Selma Kaygusuz | |
| Jacques Besse | |
| Franck Nakache | |
| Bernd von Bassevitz | |
| Jean-Pierre Mas | |
| Gülname Eşsiz | |
| Tsilla Chelton (Nusret), Derya Alabora (Nesrin), Onur Ünsal (Murat), Övül Avkiran (Güzin), Osman Sonant (Mehmet) | |
| The Match Factory, Germany T. +49 22 153 9709-0 F. +49 22 153 9709-10 info@matchfactory.de www.matchfactory.de | |
| 2-1-0 Films T. +30 210 3303433 F. +30 210 3303432 leo@2-1-0.gr www.2-1-0.gr | |
| H.F. Farsi, Elif Taşçioğlu, Serdar Yilmaz | |
| Yeşim Ustaoğlu, Muhammet Çakıral, Serkan Çakarer, Behrooz Hashemian, Setareh Farsi, Natacha Devillers, Catherine Burniaux, Michael Weber, Tobias Pausinger | |
| Ustaoglu Film Yapim | |
| Turkey, France, Belgium, Germany | |
| Silkroad Production & Les Petites Lumières & Stromboli Pictures & The Match Factory | |
| 35mm Color | |
| 112' | |
| 2008 | |
When three forty-something siblings in Istanbul receive a call one night that their aging mother has disappeared from her home at the western Black Sea coast of Turkey, the three set out to find her, momentarily setting aside their problems. As the siblings come together, the tensions between them quickly become apparent, like Pandora’s box spilling open. They come to realize that they know very little about each other and are forced to reflect on their own shortcomings.Yeşim Ustaoğlu
| Director |
| Yeşim Ustaoğlu |
 Filmography 1994 Iz/The Trace 1999 Günese yolculuk/Journey to the Sun 2004 Bulutlari beklerken/Waiting for the Clouds 2008 Pandoranin kutusu/Pandora’s box Biography She was born in Sarikamis, in eastern Turkey, in 1960. After making several award-winning shorts in Turkey, she made her feature film debut with 1994’s "The Trace" which was presented at numerous international festivals. Her second feature film, "Journey to the Sun", won the Blue Angel Award for Best European Film at the Berlin IFF and the Best Film and Best Director prizes at the Istanbul IFF in 1999. "Waiting for the Clouds" won the Special Jury Award and the Best Actress award at the Istanbul IFF and was screened at the Thessaloniki IFF 2004. |
Thessaloniki 49 | My Marlon and Brando by Hüseyin Karabey
| My Marlon and Brando / Hüseyin Karabey | |
Hama Ali, a charismatic B movie actor from Iraq, and Ayça, a similarly rotund but charming actress from Turkey, met on a film-set. Their love affair continued across borders through video love letters and broken phone calls until the Americans invaded Iraq and hellish violence engulfed the country. As most people fled from East to West seeking safety, Ayça decided to make the journey from West to East, seeking her lover. This dramatic feature film is the true story of her extraordinary, and ultimately tragic, experiences in such mad times... | |
| Hüseyin Karabey | |
| Hüseyin Karabey, Ayça Damgaci | |
| A. Emre Tanyildiz | |
| Mary Stephen | |
| Mohammed Mokhtari | |
| Kemal S. Gürel, Erdal Güney, Hüseyin Yildiz | |
| Yasemin Taşkin | |
| Ayça Damgaci (Ayça), Hama Ali Khan (Hama Ali), Cengiz Bozkurt (Azad), Savaş Emrah Özdemir (Soran), Ani İpekkaya (Mrs Ariknas) | |
| Insomnia World Sales, France T. +33 1 4358 0804 F. +33 1 4358 0932 contact@insomnia-sales.com www.insomnia-sales.com | |
| Lucinda Englehart, Hüseyin Karabey, Sophie Lorant | |
| A-si Film Yapim & Motel Films & Spier Films | |
| Turkey, The Netherlands, UK | |
| 35mm Color | |
| 92' | |
| 2008 | |
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