- Turkish American Cultural Society of New England
(TACS)
- and
- Museum of Fine Arts,
Boston
- proudly present
2nd BOSTON TURKISH FILM FESTIVALSM
April 16 - 26, 2003
|
- Wednesday, April 16 8:00
p.m. Summer Love / O da Beni Seviyor
- Thursday, April 17 8:00
p.m. My Mother / Anam
-
Director Buket Alakus will be present
- Friday, April
18 7:30
p.m. Fate / Yazgi
-
Director Zeki Demirkubuz will be present
- Saturday, April 19 1:00
p.m. Confession / Itiraf
-
Director Zeki Demirkubuz will be present
- Saturday, April
19 2:45
p.m. Discussion with Directors
Buket Alakus
-
and Zeki Demirkubuz
- Friday, April
25 8:00
p.m. 9
- Saturday, April 26 3:00
p.m. Summer Love / O da Beni Seviyor
All films in 35 mm and with
English subtitles
- All films will be screened at the Museum of Fine Arts, 465 Huntington Avenue,
Boston
-
About
Zeki Demirkubuz
|
DIRECTORS
BUKET ALAKUS AND ZEKI DEMIRKUBUZ
- discussing trends
- in Turkish film
-
- SATURDAY,
- APRIL 19
- 2:45 p.m.
- Riley Seminar
Room, Museum of Fine arts
Free
admission
|
About
Buket Alakus |
All films will be screened at the Museum of Fine Arts, 465 Huntington Avenue,
Boston
Click here for directions
- Tickets are $9 ($8 for students, seniors and MFA members),
$6 for groups of 20 or more.
- For ticket information call 617-369-3770. Box
office hours: 10 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.; closed on Mondays.
- To
purchase tickets on-line, click here
SUMMER LOVE (O da Beni Seviyor)
-
- Directed by Baris Pirhasan
- Cast: Ece Eksi, Luk Piyes, Lale Mansur, Ayla Algan
- 2001, 100 min.
- In Turkish with English subtitles.
In this coming-of-age story set in 1973, thirteen-year-old Esma is packed off
to the country for the summer. Although the trip is meant as a punishment for
doing poorly in school, Esma is overjoyed to find a soulmate in Saliha - the
black sheep of the family who rebelled against an arranged marriage - and a
potential boyfriend in a handsome 18-year-old local. But as the first stirrings
of teenage love give way to the painful moment when one learns to distinguish
between youthful dreams and bittersweet reality, some hard life lessons await
Esma. The beautifully shot film, full of sumptuous landscapes and local Alevi
culture, delivers a complex appraisal of village life and explores themes
related to the massive urban migration of the 1970s.
MY MOTHER (Anam)
- Directed by Buket Alakus
- Cast: Navid Akhavan, Tayfun Bademsoy,
Julide Girisken, Nursel Kose
- 2001, 81 min.
- In German and Turkish with English
subtitles.
A film inspired by director Buket Alakus's own
mother, My Mother is about a woman Alakus describes as having "the passion
of Sophia Loren, the pride of Anna Magnani, the self-sacrificing love of Mother
Theresa and the stubbornness of a country mule." The film tells the story
of a Turkish cleaning woman in Germany who breaks with her traditional way of
life in order to save her son from drugs - and discovers her own strengths and
the joys of living along the way. Described as a "brilliant feature
debut".
FATE (Yazgı)
- Directed by Zeki Demirkubuz
- Cast: Serdar
Orçin, Zeynep Tokuş, Engin Günaydın, Demir Karahan
- 2001, 120 min.
- In Turkish with English subtitles
-
- Musa
who works as a bookkeeper in the customs office, believes in the emptiness
and absurdity of life. He doesn’t struggle to change his life; he lets
himself to the flow of events because he thinks that it all leads to the
same end. The death of his mother doesn’t effect him. Although he loves
her, her death even makes him joyful. In order not to decide himself, he
marries with a girl whom he doesn’t like, but just because she wants to.
Whereas in his world, people deal with their fate with their own will and
power. Musa is arrested for the death of a mother and her two kids. However,
he doesn’t give any reaction to this event, either...
-
- The
first film of Zeki Demirkubuz’s “Tales About Darkness” trilogy, FATE,
the screenplay of which has been inspired by Albert Camus’ famous novel
“Stranger”, describes the story of a person who feels guilty without any
reason and rejects to use his will. “All my life, I always wanted to
express my feeling of guilt and my hatred towards the privileged and to
those who are seeking privilege only.” – Zeki Demirkubuz
CONFESSION (İtiraf)
- Directed
by Zeki Demirkubuz
- Cast:
Taner
Birsel, Başak Köklükaya
- 2001,
91 min.
- In
Turkish with English subtitles
|
|
- Harun,
a rich and successful engineer, learns of the betrayal of his wife Nilgün.
However, as he does not want to believe it, or else in order not to lose the
beautiful wife that he is still in love with, he does not face this
situation in the beginning, and does not tell his wife what he knows.
However, time is heavy and painful in passing, and uncertainty is
unbearable. When he finally decides to have a face off and have his wife
confess everything, a long night of “interrogation” starts. While the
couple, married for seven years, advance in the darkness of being human, it
becomes impossible to identify who’s who. Begging turns into violence,
tears mix with screams. When morning comes, everything is over and Harun is
face to face with the “truth” that he has been seeking for such a long
time. However, this is not the truth of his wife’s betrayal, but that of
his betrayal of his best friend years ago.
-
- "There
is not much drawback to living without a knowledge as to whom we are, what
we are living through, without getting curious of truth. We can even say
that this may prove to be good for people of our day. On the other hand, the
opposite has many drawbacks. First of all, time passes heavily and
painfully. Nothing seems to suffice. But the worst is at the end. After such
a long road taken, there is neither a new place to reach nor any new thing
to understand. We feel ourselves betrayed and like shit. But if there is no
possibility of some other thing happening and if I do not now this, or do
not deceive myself, I think that it is worth everything even to live through
this pain. Otherwise I wouldn’t dare to make five films on “empty
obsessions” like evil and hopelessness in a world where such big and
fantastic stories are lived through, a world so full of such meaningful and
lofty values." - Zeki Demirkubuz
9
- Directed by Umit Unal
- Cast: Ali Poyrazoglu, Serra Yilmaz, Cezmi
Baskin, Fikret Kuskan, Ozan Guven, Rafa Rodamisli, Esin Pervane
- 2002, 94 min.
- In Turkish with English subtitles
An investigation into a killing through a series
of cross-cut interviews with suspects, this intense film opens with the rape and
murder of a beautiful vagrant living in a small and conservative neighborhood in
Istanbul. As part of the investigation, the police interrogate six people, who
reveal the secret history of the quiet neighborhood. Selected as Turkey's
official entry to the 2003 Oscars, this story about everyday fascism in the
lives of ordinary people was the first Turkish film shot and edited entirely in
digital video and transferred to 35 mm. format.
ZEKİ DEMİRKUBUZ
Born in
Isparta in 1964. He has graduated from the Department of Communications at
Istanbul University. He began his film career as an assistant to director Zeki
Ökten in 1986 and worked as assistant director until making "Block
C", his first feature film, in 1994. His following films, “Innocence”
(1997) and “The Third Page” (1999) won many awards. He directed FATE and
CONFESSION, the first two films of his “Tales About Darkness” trilogy, in
2001.
Last year, both Fate and Confession
were shown at the sidebar competition at the Cannes Film Festival, marking the
first time ever two features by the same director were screened in one
year.
Filmography:
1994
C Blok / Block C
1997
Masumiyet / Innocence
1999
Üçüncü Sayfa / The Third Page
2001
Yazgı / Fate
İtiraf / Confession
BUKET ALAKUS
Buket Alakus was born in 1971 in
Istanbul. After finishing her studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin in
1995, she studied Film Directing at Hamburg University's Institute of Theater,
Music and Film from 1996-98. Her films include: the shorts Schluessel
(1996), Tango (1997) and Kismet (1998). Her film Schluessel
received the First Prize for Best Main
Actress at the Festival Mondial du Cinéma de Courts Métrages in Belgium and
First Prize for Best Screenplay at the Festival Donne in Corto Transeurope in
Italy. She had her feature debut in 2001 with Anam.