Interview with Bahman Ghobadi

23.02.2010 00:00

INTERVIEW OF THE DAY: BAHMAN GHOBADI

We know him from his films like A Time for Drunken Horses. This time he reveals the undergraound music scene in Iran with Nobody knows about Persian Cats. As a Kurd who well knows how to live on the borders, he is among our speakers on the !f²:Live from Istanbul panel today, in which we will discuss the identities in new geographies. 

Can you tell us about the filming conditions?

Making a film in Iran means danger, especially when it is illegal. When filming musicians, since that is illegal too, there was always a risk of being caught. We kept escaping from one place to the other. We never had the chance to re-shoot a sequence. We were caught once, but we said the film wasn’t ours but a friend’s. We got away by giving a few films.
Did you get in trouble after the screening?

The main characters were going to leave Iran, as the film shows. I left too. If I go back, they will either take my passport or put me in prison.

How much of it is fiction?

95 percent is real. The locations, musicians are real.

How many Persian cats are there in Iran? What is their future?

About 3000. I gave the film to Iran society as a gift. Now they all watch it and know all those musicians. There is an underground art scene that has been going on for 31 years and it keeps progressing. This won’t die away. All their work is archived in the houses. 95 percent of Iranian art is underground.

You made Kurdish films up to now...

I was accused of being a separatist when I made my last Kurdish film. I always tried to explain the opposition of the Kurdish community in Iran and their second-class existence. Some of my friends at that time believed the state propaganda. But I also wanted to make a film saying something different from everything that has been done so far. The images you see in this film, are much closer to that stressful real Tehran.

Do you always try to cross borders in your films?

We Kurds were always caught in between coups and were always treated as less important because we were on the borders. Iran, Arab or Turk, they did not think we were important. We want friendship based on respect. We are not into making a country. We want to eliminate the Turkish- Kurdish, Persian- Kurdish hierarchies. That is why there are borders, conflicts and contrasts in my films.

Opening? 

Very little and vague. There has to be a friendship in a country where one out of four or five people are Kurds. Otherwise that country will not develop. Iran is always going backwards because it does not care about its minorities. But still I can make Kurdish films. In Turkey, despite all the freedoms, they cannot be made. It puzzles me.

Interiew - Hisham Zaman

23.02.2010 00:00

Hisham Zaman’s heartbreaking short film Bawke won almost 40 awards. He then pointed his camera at the absurdities of Kurds dancing with snow in the Norwegian Winterland. He is a Kurdish-born director living in Norway and is one of five filmmakers featured in “!f2: Live from Istanbul”, in which 5 films which examine compelling contemporary cross-border themes will be broadcast this weekend simultaneously to twenty cities in Turkey, Ramallah, Yerevan and Tangiers as well as Istanbul.

‘The stories are not biographical but if you search, you will find me in there.’

‘The year I made the film, 2004, 20 children in Norway were left in the refugee camp by their parents.’

I make films about the consequences of politics. What politics does to human beings? Why am I in Norway and not my home town Kirkuk? Why they have to risk life to get to a better life? Then it must be that the life they left is much much worse.

How was journey from Northern Iraq to Norway?

I left Northern Iraq when I was 9 years old. I went to Iran. Came back at the end of 1991. I had to come back and forth for a while. I could not come to Kirkuk because of Saddam. When I had to flee again, this time I went to Kahramanmaraş. I worked there in a factory with my family. We could not stay there because of our background. That time it was hard to be a Kurd in Turkey. And we did not have any papers. We smuggled ourselves from Habur. Some of my new film tells about this journey in an indirect way. We were living in very hard conditions. So we contacted the UN and this was our way to Norway. The experience was terrible for us. But somehow we managed to get ourselves out of that situation and go to freedom to Norway as refugees.

So your next film is about Turkey?

Some of it. The films are not about me but about some of the journeys I made. This is not a political story. It is more like a love story. A boy that has to search for his sister. In this search he meets a girl in Istanbul and somehow they have to go to Europe. I turn those journeys into fictional stories. Sometimes they have nothing to the with my life but close to me because I made some of the physical journeys myself. They are not biographical but if you search, you will find me in there.

Bawke is very strong but how real?

The film is not about Kurds. About a Kurdish father and a Kurdish son. But no place in the film there is any mention of that. Unless your are a Kurd and understand the language. When I show that film to Americans or Japanese people they don’t know where they are from. For them they are human beings, father and son. Everybody can easily identify with these people. For me it was important not to tell about the nationality, geography and religion aspects of the film. For me it was important to talk about father and son in a harsh condition in search of a better life. When they come to the new country they meet a harsher condition and the father has to make a choice. But the year I made the film, 2004, 20 children in Norway were left in the refugee camp by their parents. The situation became worse in Europe and people had no choice. This was his last card. He cannot risk taking his son under the lorry again.

What happens to those children? Is future really brighter for them?

I don’t think so. I watched a documentary about that. The children are totally innocent. They don’t understand. When they grow up maybe they can understand and forgive their parents. In my film this boy does not understand. He is a kid but probably one day he will understand his father did it to show his love to him and to give him a better life.

You said being a Kurd is being political. Can that be a burden in filmmaking?

My last short film is not Kurdish. It is Norwegian and called the other ones. Has nothing to do with Kurds. More multi cultural. I want to be a good story teller and express my feelings in cinema. It can be joy, anger, frustration. How can I transform them to cinema? I want to come out of cinema and feel something. Be richer as a human being and not feel manipulated to cry or laugh or to have fun. I want to carry that experience to my daily life.

I feel free. I live in Norway and I can make a film about whatever I want but yes there is some expectations from the society around that wants me to make films that has some Kurdish issue in it but I am not into making statements in cinema. Change life or war. I want to show situations or characters that affected me as a human being and show them as they are. But in a cinematic way of course, not documentary.

How do you feel about Kurdish festivals?

Kurdish Festivals are important because they show films that are made by Kurdish film makers. They create an arena for filmmakers to meet and exchange experience and ideas. They create a platform for people to meet who don’t meet otherwise. I go from Norway to London some other come from Erbil, other Australia. They have one thing in common. They are Kurds and don’t have a recognized country. Every festival is good. You may win an award and it may open a door for you. I am more focused in Norway and the conditions of people living there. I make films about the consequences of politics. What politics does to human beings? Why am I in Norway and not my home town Kirkuk? Why people have to go under a lorry to get to Norway? Why can’t they get a passport and sit at the passenger seat to get to Norway? Why they have to risk life to get to a better life? Then it must be that the life they left is much much worse.

Winterland is like the Kurds’ dance with snow. What do you say there?

A man left his country, came to a society and accepted the codes of that society and now he wants to invite a new person into that weird landscape and marry her and live his life. For me this is absurd because this man does not belong to that earth. He belongs to a warmer area and now he is in Winterland and prepares to marry a girl whom he saw form a picture and spoke to only on the phone. This also happened a lot in the 90s. It is called post marriage. This guy cannot go back because of the war and be a part of the most beautiful day of his life. This is again reflecting the consequences of politics. How people’s life are damaged. How are they put into surrealist conditions. If it wasn’t for the war this man would not be in Norway. This war and decisions the politicians made put this man into this condition.

What can you say for the Kurdish problem in Turkey?

It is good that some doors have been opened for the Kurdish people here. Like it was mentioned in the panel we should not avoid that they exists. The problems are there and they should be talked about. They should be talked about in an appropriate way. People here should be allowed to say they are Kurds and allowed to say even Kurdistan. In Yılmaz Güney’s film ‘Yol’ that I bought not very many months ago, that bit was edited out. There is still a censorship. I hope this change will resolve to something better not, worse.

!f Inspired Competition Jury Divides Prize Between Two Films

22.02.2010 00:00

After deliberating for four hours, members of the jury for the !f istanbul International Film Competition decided to award the Most Inspired Director award to two filmmakers. The jury was composed of Icelandic filmmaker Dagur Kari, Sundance Film Festival world cinema senior programmer Caroline Libresco, Turkish director Ümit Ünal, film critic and NISIMASA founder Matthieu Darras and Mexican producer Daniel Birman Ripstein.

The winning films were Uruguay’s Gigante, by Adrian Biniez, and Agrarian Utopia (Sawan Baan Na), by Thai director Uruphong Raksasad. The award’s $15,000 cash prize will be divided between the two.

In their statement, the Jury said: “We wish to award the !f istanbul Directing Prize to two inspired films. For its precise, skillful directing; humanistic vision; and appreciation of heavy metal music, we award the Prize to GIGANTE; And for putting conflicting realities into perspective in a shifting world and for artfully and transcendently re-envisioning nature and humanity, we award the Prize to AGRARIAN UTOPIA.”

Interview with Daniel Birman Ripstein

18.02.2010 00:00

The acclaimed producer of The Crime of Father Amarro and Daniel y Ana, the deputy head of the Mexican Association of Independent Film Producers, is a guest of !f Istanbul as a member of our jury for the !f Inspired competition. He will also be speaking on Sunday’s !f2 panel discussion about new visions for the film industry. We addressed the issue beforehand for our website readers. 

‘The internet is the future of exhibition, but it doesn’t mean that the other will end. The experience of going to the cinemas is something that will never find a substitute.’

‘Everything will end up being 3D. People will buy 3D glasses like a fashion statement.’

What are the new horizons for the film industry in the time of crisis?

The new methods will definitely be linked to the internet. New methods of promoting movies are connected to this massive thing that the internet has become, and there are still many unknowns about how exactly to use it commercially. Mexico is very new to many of these things. Mostly in terms of internet speed. Mexico is still very slow so we cannot really access all the information as fast as we would like. But it is definitely a new option, a new window. We are very happy as distributors and producers to have another option. Because some come, and some die away. DVD home video is really starting to die. Piracy is terrible in Mexico.

What is the future for arthouse cinema, which can't find a place in the conventional cinema?

I think cinema is no longer for the elite class to do or to see.  Here again, technology and the internet opened a lot of new possibilities for filmmakers and for audiences to approach these new movies. People are commercializing things through very simple means on their computers. Like YouTube. The Sundance Film Festival has this new thing like showing some of the films through the internet. The internet is the new way of exhibiting. It is the future of exhibition, but it doesn’t mean that the other will end. I think going to the cinema is an experience. It is not like sitting in front of your computer or connecting the computer to a television. The experience of going to the cinemas is something that will never find a substitute.

You are among the leaders of this new cinema movement in Mexico…

I am a part of a wave of new generation of filmmakers, producers, actors who are trying to do international cinema, not just the local one. When you conceive a movie, you think whether it is going to be for the local market or has a potential to travel. I see this happening in many countries around the world. I had the great possibility of working with my grandfather for 15 years. He was a producer for 65 years and was always willing to learn things. He told me ‘I am 89 years old and I am still learning about cinema.’ I also keep learning every day. There are some things I like better than others but you have to enter this snowball of new things.

What does this new movement represent?

I think it represents new voices. For many years cinema was done by the same people, directors, producers, with the same subjects and Mexican cinema really went down. So new possibilities, fresh ideas became much more important .Mexican movies started to have this value outside Mexico. It became very interesting.

How did they make their voice heard?

By starting with very simple films. Films that had very incredible artistic values,  that did not have huge budgets but films that were a breakthrough. 

What kind of stories provoke you?

Something that really grabs me or moves me can have a potential of becoming very big. I must see it as problem or I must relate to it. I won’t do or distribute something that I am not moved by.

What is the future of cinema? Where is it heading?

Cinema is like an experience. It has been creating more reality. At the beginning, films were silent. Then they started to talk. Got nearer reality. Then had color. Again one more step towards reality. And now 3D. You see an event in the 3rd dimension. More real again. I think the next thing that is coming is that we are going to be a part of what we see. Maybe we won’t know the difference between watching a movie and being a part of it. For example Avatar is an incredibly done movie. There are people who like it, people who don’t like it but everybody will say you have to see it. Because although there have been many 3D movies before, this is another experience. People really felt something different.

Did you like it?

Not really. I liked the effects. It was very impressive. But I don’t know. Not my thing.

Will you try 3D?

Not now. I won’t. I would like to know how they are done. But also, I think at the beginning there will be certain types of films that will be done in 3D. All films won’t work but I believe it will evolve into that. Everything will end up being 3D. People will buy 3D glasses like a fashion statement.

How do you like Hollywood?

I find Hollywood very entertaining. They have wonderful things and they have terrible things. I admire many of their directors. It is an industry. Cinema in my country is still not an industry. A film director or an actor still can't live from doing movies. I think it is an industry when people can really earn a living from what they do and not do something else. The economic crisis had a bad effect. We had a terrible devaluation in Mexico, about 40 percent. And everything is rated in dollars so automatically everything was 40 percent more expensive.

What is the last film that you watched?

Inglorious Bastards, which I really liked very much.

Your favorite filmmakers?

David Lynch and Peter Greenaway.

Interview with Orton Akıncı - !f İstanbul programme coordinator for short films

17.02.2010 00:00

Akıncı has been in charge of our short films programme since 2002. He is an academic at Yıldız Technical University and interested in contemporary art. He is so into the ‘crowd sourcing’ movement that he reproduced Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin scene by scene with his students. , What are your criteria for drawing up a program? When we’re making the program, we watch all the shorts that we receive at least once. Certain themes and issues emerge, and we discuss them. Then we draw up a list of five to ten themes. When we’re making the program, this gets reduced to four or five. We watch some of the shorts again and again. Sometimes we add to the initial list, or take films off it. The ones we want to show are the ones that had an impact on us, that had something new to say and make you think. But not all of these make it into the program because we also have to pay attention to the dialogue that the films establish with each other, the themes selected, and their length. Other than this, of course the basic criterion for the program is the !f style… What struck you most while watching this year’s shorts? Pain, and people’s reaction to pain. “It Hurts” is about deep interior pain that had to be absorbed; “We Struggle, We Push” is about struggle against pain, against life; “To go or not to go” is about people who in the end had to leave, or chose to leave. There’s a fourth theme related to pain, but those stories are more about people who accept pain, make it normal, ignore it. The title of that selection is: “We’re Doing Just Fine.” How is short filmmaking in Turkey? That’s a big question. The answer usually takes the form of complaints. Huseyin Alptekin has a piece called “Don’t Complain”, a very layered piece. There is always something to complain about. Otherwise people wouldn’t say it. But it also suggests that there must be ways out. My answer to the question is that there are more short films being made, because the means of producing, copying and distributing films have been democratized. We can now see more good work, because there are no obstructions to this. It’s no longer up to the producers to decide whether to take films and their makers seriously, because the filmmakers have direct access to an audience, everyone can create their own fan base. “Don’t complain.” (3.30 & 5.30pm/ AFM Fitaş)

Nighthawk of the day: Paul Hallam (Scriptwriter of Nighthawks)

16.02.2010 10:00

Paul Hallam – Scriptwriter of Nighthawks

Paul Hallam made Nighthawks, one of the most important milestones of gay cinema, with Ron Peck almost 40 years ago. Now he is an Istanbullu – and a teacher too, just like the main Nighthawk of the film -- who will attend the first ever screening of this legendary film at AFM Fitas at 7 pm, and answer your questions afterwards.

“That is the big irony. Making this film, 30 years later of being out as a gay film maker, coming to a different country the first time, not being out…”

“Derek Jarman said; ‘This film is my life all wrapped up.’ He was very much part of that scene even though his films took completely different approaches.”

“It is always easy to get smug about old things being improved but of course if you look globally, the situation of gays is fluctuating and sometimes going backwards. There are many countries where it is still illegal.”

How relevant and how outdated is Nighthawks in representing gay life?

It was showing a fundamental problem of being gay at that time. Because it was the issue of whether you were known to be gay, whether you were known and accepted as gay in your day to day life. But it certainly wasn’t showing the problem of the night. This is the first screening of the film ever in Turkey. I am very curious to see how it does look to a Turkish audience. Whether they will think it is a period piece or bears any relation to present-day experience. Probably the latter. I am sure people don’t wear pullovers in the discos anymore. The clothing thing is the thing that most dates it. But I think the whole issue of being known to be gay at school maybe is familiar, people hiding their sexuality at school pretty much across the world, not just in Turkey or England... I don’t think there are that many teachers who are openly gay at school. I don’t think it massively changed.

Is it based on a real story?

Not on any real life particular case. But we did base it on the experience of the people in the film who didn’t play themselves but who played characters quite close to themselves. Their particular experience about how their life seemed to be divided between daytime and night-time and the difficulty of bringing those things comfortably together, which I think still a very real issue in many countries including the countries where you might think it's not an issue, the United States, the UK. The nature of the gay scene, the visibility of gays, and representation of gays is much more varied. The cast was non-professional except for the leading actor. They played characters based around their own experience. We wrote it with a group of people over the course of three years. We had a tiny budget. It was very difficult to get any conventional finance, very difficult to do things like shooting at schools. We had to create a set for the school. And you'd probably have the same problems today, if they saw the whole script. I am incredibly curious to learn whether it touches any nerves here.

How was it received at the time?

It caused quite a controversy in the gay world. It was attacked by quite a few radical gays who felt it wasn’t celebratory enough about gays’ difference. They wanted a more avert political statement. They wanted to show - terrible word which I hate - promiscuity as being celebrated. They thought it was pretty different from the straight world. They were quite disappointed because it wasn’t radical enough. Other people were saying quite the opposite. They wanted a true romance. A film to end happily. They wanted him to walk into the sunset with another man. In other words, to kind of normalize the gay world. Still, a lot of people in the middle thought it was the only film at that time to show anything like a normal experience of the gay world. There were so few gay films at the time. Now there are hundreds and with a huge range of characters. The burden of the film was to try and represent the whole of the gay world, which is absurd as you cannot represent whole of the straight world in one film.

How do you find the gay cinema today?

Much more range of voices are being heard. Ranging from absolutely mainstream rather soft kind of films to very hard-core, wild and experimental, innovative kind of film making. That was in a sense what we were hoping to be a part of.  A kind of explosion of gay cinema. There have been people trying different things like Derek Jarman in England. It wasn’t that there were no experiments but they were very few. Derek was a bit of a character anyway. He was a friend of mine. He is actually swaying around drunkenly in one of the gay scenes. Cruising very heavily. He gave the quote: “This film is my life all wrapped up.” Because he was very much part of that scene even though his films took completely different approaches. That’s where Ron and I met him, in bars and he was quite a wild character on that scene. He actually liked the film very much but some other people would say we actually prefer the films that Derek makes to this kind of films, which they saw as coming from more of a British realist tradition. I don’t think it is just that. I think the film draws on various film traditions. It is quite experimental. It pushes people a bit. It is quite difficult to watch at times. But now... I don’t really go to gay film festivals unless there is some good reason to.

Why? What is missing?

Nothing really. It is always easy to get smug about old things being improved but of course if you look globally, the situation of gays is fluctuating and sometimes going backwards. There are many countries where it is still illegal. There are recent things in Africa where fundamentalist Christians are pressing for executions of homosexuals. This is the first screening of this film in Turkey, which has a predominantly Muslim population. Turkey is renowned for being open to all lifestyles but it is not true across the Islamic world. There are still many films to be made and I think people are making them. That’s what I am looking out for when I go to a festival these days. What is coming out from countries where the legal situation is quite different. I haven’t seen huge amounts of gay films in the recent years. Gay films became much less my own focus. It isn’t because I think there is not any need but I don’t think of it very differently to other cinema now.

Which elements of gay life would you portray if you made a gay film today?

I was in my 20s when I made that film, now I am in my mid 50s. Many people ask me if I explored the Istanbul gay scene. I tell them I am in bed by midnight now. The night life here starts pretty late. I watched the growth of all those things with a kind of pleasure but I have also seen the move towards civil liberties in terms of gay marriage. That is not an issue that really interest me to be honest. I think it is important to have equal rights. It is important to have your partnership recognised but that kind of struggle is not a kind of a struggle I find very fascinating. It is not to me as interesting as the period in which we were making the film. In a way I got a bit exhausted and moved into areas that are not specifically gay. Perhaps a love story. It could be gay.

Can you pinpoint an issue in the gay world that would be important to cover in film?

I think it would have to be set somewhere other than Western Europe for me to get really fascinated. Different codes of conduct. Different physical behaviour. Different cultures, religion, family situations to the norm in the west. So I would probably like to work in collaboration with people in another country. I think Turkey is interesting because it kind of has got everything. It has got all the different sort of mixes and very different life styles. I would very much like to know teachers in turkey. Particularly outside Istanbul maybe.

Why is that?

Just how much the subject comes up. When I do college work here, I am still hearing the same jokes that I heard 30 years ago between boys. It is still not a topic that comes up in an ordinary conversation. But I also don’t hear really very vicious remarks from young people. The first people I have met, first people who offered me beds to sleep in, were all straight men who had no problem whatsoever with the idea of my being gay. Putting me in the same rooms with their brothers, sleeping on the couches in their living rooms. I found that quite surprising. They were almost a third of my age and they are straight and they are completely cool. But by chance I haven’t really met any gay people in Istanbul. Partly because if I wanted to meet them the obvious place would be to go to the clubs, which I feel a bit old to do. I might do it once every couple of months if pushed, but socially I haven’t really met any gay people yet so I don’t know the experience here. I wouldn’t like to pronounce on anything until I get a bit familiar with it. Because there probably are very particular pressures.

Did you come out at school?

That is the big irony. Making this film, 30 years later of being out as a gay film maker, coming to a different country the first time, not being out… That would be a very rich irony in my watching this film. There will be some teachers and students there. They might notice my name in the listing of the !f festival. I am teaching quite large classes. In England it would always come up. I give arts and design lessons there and I would show some of my films as a part of the lesson. It becomes very apparent from my articles and films. But here I teach English. I think I need to test the water a bit before I come out. I don’t want to become the centre of attention. You are the centre of attention as a foreigner anyway. I am often the first English person they met. There is also the physicality thing. ‘We love you teacher!’ Nobody says we love you teacher in England. But boys say it all the time here. I am in a bit of a dilemma.

How did Turkey come into your life?

I was invited to a conference at Haliç University on life writing which is kind of like autobiographical writing. A lot of my published work is that. It was an April day four years ago. My guide book was stolen by an English man at the airport which had all the information I needed. So I had to leave myself at the hands of a taxi driver. He took me to Eminonu just by Topkapı palace. I looked out the window and thought. ‘Wow this street is absolutely amazing.’ It was a very rough street with lots of car mechanics covered in oil. Also many people out there, drinking tea. And I was thinking ‘next to Topkapı Palace’? I thought the area would be incredibly chic. I Got to the hotel, went to the top floor, first they put me on a back room and I said ‘it is my birthday,’ so got the front room. Looked straight across the water to the most spectacular view and I really said it then ‘I think I have to live here.’ It was love at first sight. It took a while to make the transition. It is only in the last two years I can say I am Istanbullu.

Feeling Blue and 31

16.02.2010 08:00

Everybody will be able to watch the film after the festival. Posters are being hung up at bootleg shops. It is great that it will be shown in the festival, we are honoured, but our purpose was always to give it away. Bootlegging is anarchist. Something that costs money is being sold in breach of all copyrights. And incredibly, everyone is doing it. Even the owners of film studios or distributors. That means something anarchist is really changing the system. Music companies are desperately trying to find other means of income. We also wanted to be a part of this change. Because we want the film to be seen. If 20 thousand people see it, we’re happy. That’s is how we envisioned this project.We funded it. But for the next one, we will have to find money. If this one provides us with that, we’re happy. (7pm / Fitaş IV)

Interview with Brotherhood director Nicolo Donato

16.02.2010 05:00

‘Brotherhood’ director Nicolo Donato

Danish director Nicolo Donato’s “Brotherhood” (Broderskab) is so powerful on so many levels that it is hard to pin it down to a specific theme or genre. A gay-bashing scene at the start of the film takes on a whole new dimension when Jimmy, who belongs to a neo-Nazi gang, becomes too close for their comfort to a new member, the discharged army sergeant Lars. One of the highlights of the Rainbow Films section, “Brotherhood” could also have been part of !f’s new section, Making Men. It’s a raw look at homosexuality, male bonds, homophobia, discrimination and masculinity in modern world.

After studying filmmaking at various schools in Denmark, Nicolo Donato worked on music videos, commercials, and later, short films. “Brotherhood” is Donato’s debut feature film, and won the Jury Award for Best Film at the Rome Film Festival last year. David Dencik, playing Jimmy, also won the Jury Prize for Best Actor at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.

We spoke to Nicolo Donato for !f Gaste. He’s perhaps the only director to have kept to our request for short answers. Here’s the brief conversation we had:

What do you think defines the modern man?

That’s a hard question... I think it’s about seeing the big picture and outside your own little box. Try to give something back.

Do you think homophobia and repressed homosexuality are related?

I hope not. I hope that people accept themselves and others. Self acknowledgement gives freedom for differences.

How would you describe “Broderskab” in one word?

Love.

What do you think is the nature of discrimination in the new world order?

Discrimination is a sensitive subject and also it’s different from country to country which minority is discriminated against. I think that we are contributing to defining the world and we still fear the unknown.

Had you heard about !f International Independent Film Festival before?

No, but from what I have seen online and heard from others, it looks very professional and I have a lot of respect for film festivals that have a lot in their heart, and it appears that you have. (By Emrah Güler)

AFM Caddebostan/22.00

Dirty Cheap Creative Game's location has changed

14.02.2010 20:00

Dirty Cheap Creative Game will be held at Kiki.

!f²: A Transterritorial Experiment in Film. 5 films in 20 locations, simultaneously

As a festival our goal is to curate a broad variety of innovative films in a meaningful way, to screen that selection to as wide an audience as possible and facilitate a collective conversation. We have a new ally in digital technology which now allows films to travel great distances, unweighted by the canisters and reels that previously made such an enterprise both difficult and costly, without compromising on top-notch visual quality.
 
In partnership with the acclaimed US-based cinema website The Auteurs, this year we will screen five of the festival's most sought-after films in 20 locations across Turkey and the Middle East concurrent to their weekend screenings in Istanbul. Many of these cities do not have cinema theaters. Those that do are often reliant on mainstream studio distribution of second or third run features.
 

!f 2010 Showcases New Generation Turkish Documentary Filmmakers

Three of Turkey’s most exciting documentary directorswill premiere their latest films during!f istanbul 2010. The films shed light on pressing contemporary issues, from the tragic death of an Italian peace activist, to overdevelopment threatening the verdant Black Sea coast and the culture of a popular TV reality show. 

Italian activist Pippa Bacca set out to hitchhike from Milan to Israel in a white wedding dress to raise awareness for global peace. Her journey was cut tragically short in Gebze, western Turkey, when she was brutally murdered. Director Bingöl Elmas dons a black wedding dress and takes up the journey where Pippa’s ended. Hitchhiking alone in trucks and minibuses across Turkey, she tries to make sense of why Pippa died. The resulting film “My Letter to Pippa” is a fascinating portrait of beliefs about men and women across a diverse region.

Talented director Rüya Arzu Köksal follows on from her acclaimed film The Shore, about the destruction of Turkey’s Black Sea coastline – one of the world’s most biodiverse regions- with “An Argonaut in Ordu”.  Her focus is Enis Ayar, an iconoclastic figure in Turkey’s protest culture since the late 60s. From a 100-km solo walk from Istanbul to Ordu, to a festival uniting all Turkey’s Beetles (and their owners) to raise awareness of coastal ecology, Ayar is a persistent thorn in authorities’ plans to urbanise his beloved Ordu, and an inspiration to everyone else.

In the same section, Fix the World, Doğa Kılcıoğlu’s “Married to the Camera” is based on Turkey’s most popular breakfast reality show “ Esra Erol’la İzdivaç”, in which couples are created and married off. Kılıcoğlu’s nuanced documentary looks at every aspect of the show, from its glamourous host, to participants who travel miles from rural Anatolia to take part and fans who crowd the studio entrance at dawn.

Interview with Ondi Timoner- director of We Live in Public

Ondi Timoner directed this documentary about Josh Harris,“the greatest internet pioneer you never heard of,” which won her her second Grand Jury Prize at Sundance last year, after Dig. She became the only person in history to win that top prize twice.

Do you think Harris was the Andy Warhol of 1990s New York? Do you consider him more of an artist or a smart computer geek?

He definitely feels like he is an artist. He says his art is the art of the Internet. I personally don’t like to judge my subjects. I wouldn’t be able to do such projects if my subjects felt a lot of judgement from me. But he is not much of a computer geek. He doesn’t even understand much about programming. I think he's more of an artist. He was determined to mark this period in history.

From New York, the most online city of all time, he moves to one of the most offline countries, Ethiopia. What do you make of this move?

It didn't work in the film but when he was 10 years old he lived in Ethiopia for a year. His father worked for the CIA and was posted there. He felt very happy there. He was carried around in nice cars with drivers, and got to shoot guns. He says he felt like a king there. He also learned you can live relatively well there for little money so I think he figured it was a good haven.

You say we are the Bunker and Josh is Facebook. Is there really no substantial difference between total surveillance with no control over what you want to share, and the Facebook way?

We are making ourselves the star of our own movies. It is not the truth, it is not our truth. It is the truth you want people to see. You are connecting more and more. If you don’t get any feedback, you think you are not intersting enough and try and make yourself more interesting by posting more - and hopefully more interesting stuff. Everybody knows the Internet is amazing. Without it, I wouldn’t be able to put this film out. I think people get that but they don’t realize that when they think they are connected, they are actually disconnecting - losing something. When you are in front of your screen, you’re actually not communicating with another human being. There is an argument that the next generation will not be able to read facial expressions as well, and they won’t be able to remember facts because they just Google them. This is an evolutionary process.

WE LIVE IN PUBLIC is a cautionary tale. Make sure that your kids don’t spend all their time in front of the computer. And you don't do it either! Make sure you maintain physical real relations because that’s where you will get intimacy, and nowhere else. Josh will argue that we are not going to be more individualised but we are actually going to turn into machines. Machines will take over. I wouldn’t go that far but I think his is a tale to caution us against that. Don't think fame is a cure all, or sacrifice your intimate relationships by making them public, as he did.

What do you think of Josh Harris?

I feel for Josh. Life is a show to him. Everything is a game. Everybody around is a player. And they are all in competition, and he wants to win. He came back for the premiere of the film and hasn’t gone back to Ethiopia. He wants to get back on top again and sees this as his opportunity. He doesn’t know how to connect, commit and love. Tanya was the closest thing he ever came to love and the camera destroyed that relationship. Why did he let that happen? Because nothing has any value to him unless it is in public, unless it is for fame. Being brought up in front of TV, that's how he knows of love..