Screening: Youth Filmmaking Project in Turkey

Co-presented with the Institute for Artists and Global Change at Tisch School of the Arts at New York University

November 20, 7:00pm

Tisch School of the Arts
721 Broadway
Room 006 – Concourse Level
New York, NY 10003

Free admission. Please RSVP to info@americanturkishsociety.org

For additional information please call 212 583 7617

The screenings will be followed by a one-hour cocktail reception sponsored by Turkish Kitchen.

A result of the joint efforts of State University of New York at Fredonia, and Atlantik Film, one of Turkey's largest production companies, Youth Filmmaking Project is a 18-month program funded by the U.S. State Department and designed to train Turkish students to produce films about important social issues such as democracy, human rights, women's issues etc. The students are selected from six Turkish cities, chosen as training sites where they work in groups to produce three films in each city.  The cities, chosen on the basis of geographic diversity and economic status, are Edirne, Konya, Antakya, Sivas, Mardin and Artvin. In the final stages of the program, the students are invited to the United States to continue training in filmmaking and participate in film festivals featuring their films.  In addition to bolstering the professional skills of student filmmakers, the program has the added benefit of creating cultural awareness and understanding, and raising cognizance about salient social issues.
Co-Project Director Ted Schwalbe will be in attendance during the screening.

SELECTED WORKS

ANTAKYA- SHOES
Fiction, 5 minutes
Directed by Ekin Su Akdemir, Caner Apiş, Ali Bozan, and Abdullah Koyun

Three small children steal shoes, which are left in the front of a mosque during Muslim prayers, in order to fulfill their dreams.

SİVAS- 15 STEPS AHEAD
Documentary, 18 minutes
Directed by Pınar Ağca, Selin Daşdemir, Osman İmece, and Muhammet Kuşçu

A film crew follows two female candidates running for municipal office in Sivas in the most recent local election in March 2009. One unfortunate event changes the result of the elections.

MARDIN- STALE BREAD
Fiction, 3.40 minutes
Directed by Bünyamin Demir, Zeynel Arifin Gümüşçü, Zehra Havin Şimdi, and Fırat Taş

Residents in the town of Nusaybin, adjacent to the Syrian border are the unfortunate victims of land mines. Some of the most ill-fated are children losing limbs when playing soccer.

KONYA- LOVE IN ONE BREATH
Documentary, 7.57 minutes
Directed by Dicle Atan, Kahraman Güneş, Gökay Gürtunca, and Ayşenur Yalçın

The film tells the story of a reed flute maker and what this instrument, called a “ney”, represents in the philosophy of Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi.

SIVAS- I VOUCH FOR HIM
Fiction, 7.37 minutes
Directed by Gökhan Akdoğan, Onur Gül, Kürşat Taşçı, and Barış Toker

A young intelligent man looks for a job during the recent economic crisis.

ARTVIN- NOW THERE IS; NOW THERE ISN’T
Documentary, 19.13 minutes
Directed by Ünsal Aksakal, Cihat Bilen, Ali Keser and Hasan Kurt

A group of villagers face the loss of their idyllic village close to Artvin due to dam construction. The village will be flooded as part of a planned dam construction. Village elders find it extremely difficult to leave everything behind and start a new life; but the village youth have left long ago. How will the elders cope with the memories lost?

MARDIN- MY DREAM IS CINEMA
Documentary, 15.50 minutes
Directed by Ayten Akan, Evin Sevgi Baran, Yeşu Beğtaş, Agit Enver Demircan, Gülsüm Sağlam, and Kadir Kaya

The documentary depicts the long struggle to establish “Sinemardin,” a new movie theater that features films of high artistic quality and is home to international film festivals in the southeastern town of Mardin.

SIVAS- PLAY FAMILY
Documentary, 15.21 minutes
Directed by Mustafa Aburşu, Miyase Aslantaş, Mehmet Akif Güneş, and Müge Sinem Gürdal

In the town of SIZIR, girls run away at a very young age to get married, finding their “suitable” partners using cell phones and the Internet. This phenomenon, which is completely new to the town in which they live, confounds the locals, especially the elders.

EDİRNE- I PROMISE
Fiction, 4.40 minutes
Directed by Berrak Bostancı, Büşra İnalcık, Seher Sağlam, and Emre Nallar

Three children – a boy belonging to a Bulgarian minority in Edirne; another boy of Roma heritage and a girl who is the victim of domestic violence - go to school every morning and recite the pledge of Turkish citizenry.

EDIRNE- SPRING
Documentary, 14.43 minutes
Directed by Özge Arslan, Sezen Çobanoğlu, Gözde Karavit, and Batuhan Kurt

Bahar, a young Roma girl, is ready to get married. She narrates the customs of Hıdırellez (Kakava)- the celebration of the coming of spring festivities; young girls putting the bridal dress on in the hope that will help them marry sooner; the leaving of fresh tree branches by the doorway; and life after marriage in the Roma neighborhood of Edirne.

KONYA- WHEN THE PLUM TREES BLOOM
Fiction, 6.22 minutes
Directed by Merve Çiğdem, Ahmet Özçiftçi, Hümeyra Seleş, Mehmet Uluyurt

A young man tries to show his feelings to the girl he loves. Taking place during the 1980 coup d’état, one wrong move results in many unintended consequences.

EDIRNE- SING PROUD
Fiction, 5.45 minutes
Directed by Bilge Kürşat Duman, Bilal İskender, Elif Kasap, and Ahmet Can Yıldız

A Roma family heads to the city center, encountering many problems along the way due to their cultural origins. It is not until the end, when the viewers find out why they traveled all the way to the city center.

OTHER WORKS

FILM 2-CLOSE YOUR EYES
Fiction, 6.10 minutes
Directed by Tuğba Bozkurt,  İlkem Ulutaş, Zeynep Nihan Yami, and Yuşa Yıldız

Two children, one Kurdish and one Turkish, play together all day. Will understanding follow?

FILM 2-DREAMS
Fiction, 6.20 minutes
Directed by Gaye Doğan, Emre Özsoy, Hasan Yörür, and Nezihe Karakaya

A young boy and girl collect garbageto make money. The girl rifles through trash to get a set of eyes for her doll and finds help from an unlikely place.

FILM 3-CUL DE SAC
Experimental Fiction, 7.30 minutes
Directed by Naim Gezmen, Nesrin Gümüş, Macide Yalçınkaya, and Ozan Topal

A blind man wakes up from a bad dream and goes out to buy a pack of cigarettes. Will this be another ordinary day?

ARTVİN- CERRAHTEPE
Documentary, 18.30 minutes
Directed by Ceren Cebeci, Burcu İnce, and Cüneyt Medetoğlu

It has been decades since the first attempt to excavate gold from the mountains near Artvin. Since then the people of Artvin have been fighting vigorously and with success to stop mining activities in the area. However, there is always a looming threat that mining companies will come back with another plan.

FILM 3- SİRYA
Documentary, 18.50 minutes
Directed by Cengiz Düz, Merve Numanoğlu, Aylin Öztürk, and Gülşah Çakmak

A group of villagers are impelled to leave their homes by the scattering debris from highway construction near a dam. The villagers do not know where to go or how to seek help.

FILM 2-ZANQIRT
Documentary, 18.38 minutes
Directed by Bünyamin Demir, Enver Demircan, Zeynel Arifin Gümüşçü, and Fırat Taş

The interview-based film tells the story of a young man who survives a deadly family attack in the village of Bilge near Mardin. Only a handful of people outlive the attack which snuffs out the lives of 44 others. The makers of the documentary try to uncover the truth behind the attacks and whether the incident was portrayed accurately by the media.

PROJECT CREW

Nefin Dinç, Co-Project Director

Nefin Dinç, a native of Turkey, is an assistant professor at State University of New York at Fredonia, where she teaches film and video production. Her specific roles on the project include serving as primary instructor, content specialist, film producer/director, Turkish project media spokesperson, and film distributor. Ms. Dinç has worked for more than 12 years in the Turkish film industry, including at Atlantik Film, producing feature films and documentaries. She has produced and directed five documentaries, four of which are about Turkey, and has visited the project cities during the course of her documentary work. Ms. Dinç has received numerous awards and recognition for her films, which always center on important social issues such as women’s issues, refugees, and political relations between Turkey and neighboring countries. In the United States, she has organized Turkish film festivals in New York and in Texas, where she received her master’s in fine arts in documentary film production at the University of North Texas. Her professional experience has given her extensive knowledge on film distribution at film festivals, conferences, and seminars.

Ted Schwalbe, Co-Project Director

Ted Schwalbe is professor and chair of the Department of Communication at the State University of New York at Fredonia. His specific project roles include managing the overall project, fiscal administration, and project evaluation and reporting. He also is responsible for coordinating the U.S. component and U.S. project promotion, and serving as U.S. media spokesperson. Dr. Schwalbe’s teaching and scholarly area of expertise is international media. The recipient of four Fulbright awards for teaching and research in Bulgaria, Swaziland, Hungary, and Namibia, he was also the project director for three major successful USIA-sponsored media training projects in Albania, Bulgaria, and sub-Saharan Africa. A member of the in-country training team, he was in charge of the financial and administrative management of these projects, comparable in scope to this project. Dr. Schwalbe received his doctorate from the University of Southern California.