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DIRECTORS ABROAD Küçük Özgürlük / Kleine Freiheit / A Little Bit of Freedom 2003, 99 minutes, 35 mm, color; Tuesday, October 12, 8:00 PM Written and directed by Yüksel
Yavuz
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Set in Hamburg's immigrant district of Altona, Küçük Özgürlük (A Little Bit of Freedom) tells the unusual story of the friendship between two young men. Director Yüksel Yavuz, who has lived in Hamburg for almost twenty years, captures the reality of young, illegal immigrants in Germany in a very moving and intense way. Shot on a modest budget with first-time actors, the visual style of the movie conveys an authentic sense of instability, of being lost and drowning in solitude. The film is a stunning portrait of the hidden world in the heart of Europe's big cities and has an extraordinarily calm aura in spite of its breakneck sequences. Henner Winckler wrote "Yüksel Yavuz, as a very keen observer, is recording the experiences of people and this is how he creates his protagonists… At the same time, his films are also a very personal approach to cultural contexts and to his own biography. This is how he links an anecdote with politics, and therefore never forgets the social reasons for the tragedies in human relations. This is done with the same severe clearness for the German and the Turkish-Kurdish point of view." Festivals and Awards 2004 International Istanbul Film Festival (Turkey): Radikal Newspaper
People's Choice
Award: Best Film From Atilla Dorsay Living Turkey in Germany Yavuz's story - based on close observation of others, and perhaps, to an extent, on his personal experiences - becomes a tender movie that strikes at the heart despite its tough, painful components. The effort demonstrated by two young characters who meet within an alien culture --one coming from the least developed region of a sunny country and the other from a continent that is even sunnier and perhaps even less developed-- to overcome thousands of difficulties is truly moving. The sexuality between them seems more like a scream of pain, one final gesture of hopelessness. Yavuz's biggest luck was in finding an actor like Çağdaş Bozkurt to play Baran. Çağdaş has natural talent and is noticeably photogenic. I don't know if the movie would have been this successful if it was not for him. However, Yavuz also seems to have given Çağdaş what he deserves; as though he were one of those directors who is in love with his actor, Yavuz uses Çağdaş until the very end and seems to have made him the main subject of his camera. This Turkish story from Germany, different and full of sensitivity, deserves to be seen. 2004 (Excerpt)
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