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3. FIVE COLLEGE TURKISH FILM FESTIVAL November 9, 2006 - December 7, 2006 All shows will be held in Auditorium 119 in
Engineering Lab 2 at UMass. The following is the festival program. For festival poster, please click
here .
My Father and Son (Babam ve Oglum) - Nov. 9 (Thu), 6:30 Written and directed by Cagan Irmak (2005) (Turkish with English subtitles) Sadik is one of the rebellious youth who has been politically active as a university student and became a left-wing journalist in the 70's, despite his father's expectations of him becoming an agricultural engineer and taking control of their family farm in an Aegean village. On the dawn of September 12, 1980, when a merciless military coup hits the country, they cannot find access to any hospital or a doctor and his wife dies while giving birth to their only child, Deniz. After a long-lasting period of torture, trials, and jail time, Sadik returns to his village with 7-8 year-old Deniz, knowing that it will be hard to correct things with his father, Huseyin. Documentary: Ataturk - Nov. 9 (Thu), 8:30 Written and directed by Tolga Ornek (1999) (English) In the 68th anniversary of his death, the life of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Republic of Turkey... In July (Temmuzda - Original title: Im Juli) - Nov. 16 (Thu), 7:30 Written and directed by Fatih Akin (2000) (German & Turkish with English subtitles) Daniel is a young teacher in-spe, who in contrast to everyone else plans to stay in Hamburg for the summer. Juli, a girl at the flea-market, wants to get known to Daniel and manages to sell him a Mayan ring with a sun on it, foretelling him that he will meet a girl with a sun. One day later Daniel is already on his way across Europe. It seems the prophecy came true somehow. Distant (Uzak) - Nov. 20 (Mon), 7:30 Written and directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan (2002) (Turkish with English subtitles) Mahmut, a 40 year old independent photographer, is a "village boy made good" at least professionally in the big city - Istanbul in this case. After his wife leaves him, he falls into an existential crisis. Then comes his cousin Yusuf, who left his native village after a local factory closed down, effectively unemploying over half the local men. He looks to Istanbul for salvation: a job on board a ship sailing abroad, at once exciting and crucial to supporting his family in the desperately poor village. The distance between the two men is apparent at once, and becomes increasingly pronounced. Whereas Mahmut is adusted to big city life and suffers from many of its neuroses, Yusuf is a lonely, excentric country worker with annoying nervous and hygienic habits, and a sick mother back home he must somehow support. This intimate drama was filmed in the director's apartment in Istanbul, using all his furniture, appliances, rooms, car and so on as the film's props. The actor playing Yusuf is actually the director's real-life cousin, and the actor playing Mahmut is an actual friend, a non-professional actor. *Won many awards worldwide including Grand Prix and two Best Actor awards in Cannes Film Festival, and Silver Hugo award in Chicago Int'l. Film Festival. A Run for Money (Kac Para Kac) - Nov. 30 (Thu), 7:30 Written and directed by Reha Erdem (1999) (Turkish with English subtitles) A Run for Money concerns the quandary faced by an Istanbul clothier when he discovers half a million dollars languishing in a paper bag in the back of a cab. After a minor attempt to find its owner, Selim (Taner Birsel) absconds with the cash and hides it in his home, keeping his family in the dark about his newfound riches. As news of the missing cash spreads throughout the city, Selim becomes more and more insular, alienating those around him. When his business is robbed, he blames his assistant; as his paranoia mounts, he lavishes riches on his suspicious wife. Killing the Shadows (Hacivat Karagoz Neden Olduruldu?) Written by Ezel Akay and Levent Kazak. Directed by Ezel Akay. (2006) (Turkish with English subtitles) This is a story of two legendary men, Karagoz and Hacivat, who lived and died by their sense of humor. Bursa, in 1330, is an ancient, crowded Roman city at the border of Byzantium. Changed hands 4 years ago and the small Ottoman tribe is just being transformed as a local state, on the remains of the old Eastern Roman Empire. The story takes place in an unrecorded period time, the last 2 months in the lives of two legendary Turkish stand-up comedians, Karagoz & Hacivat? They lived and died during the first clashes of the decaying Eastern Roman Empire and the first Ottomans of the 14th century Anatolia. Their stories and characters are adapted for traditional shadow theatre of the later Ottoman Empire, in modern Turkey and all over the Middle-East, Greece, and western Asia. Their legend and the truth about their tragic deaths are twisted and distorted, although their stingy humor still lingers on. After the the leader of the growing tribe of Ottomans, Orhan Gazi, notices the talents of two construction workers, famous among their friends with their clever and unending jokes, he rewarded them. But they were executed when he learns that they were keeping their co-workers laughing at their jokes during work hours, and causing a delay in the construction of the mosque to be named after Orhan Bey. Reference: http://www.imdb.com For information about other Turkish festivals in the US, please click here.
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