Mental Minefields: The Dark Tales of Zeki Demirkubuz

Presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center, ArteEast and the
Moon and Stars Project in collaboration with Altyazi

September 19-24, 2007
Walter Reade Theater
(West 65th Street between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue)
New York City

The film series, “Mental Minefields: The Dark Tales of Zeki Demirkubuz” is the result of a collaboration by four organizations, Altyazı, ArteEast, Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Moon and Stars Project. Our ambition is not simply to honor the director’s talent and call attention to his captivating cinema, but also to deepen the engagement with his body of work and highlight its significance within the rich trajectory of Turkish cinema.

With seven films in thirteen years, Zeki Demirkubuz is already a major auteur in Turkish cinema. Tackling universal questions of morality and faith by situating them in the quotidian conflicts of modern-day Turkey, Demirkubuz works on these eternal themes as he tracks his characters’ intricate relationships of love and loss. He is renowned for his keen efforts to capture stories and characters predominantly rooted in Istanbul, and yet transcending a specific national framework. His cinema offers a rare vantage point from which to survey both the traditions of popular film genres, like melodrama, and the modes of filmmaking in Turkey, as with the transition from a producer-based cinema to independent production.

This retrospective contains all seven of Zeki Demirkubuz’s feature films, including the trilogy that for many constitutes the core of his achievement: the “Tales of Darkness” trilogy, composed of Yazgi (Fate, 2001), Itiraf (Confession, 2001) and Bekleme Odasi (The Waiting Room, 2003), each a completely separate film but also part of an overall portrait Demirkubuz offers of the concept of morality in the contemporary world.

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Mental Minefields: The Dark Tales of Zeki Demirkubuz by
Richard Peña, Program Director, Film Society of Lincoln Center

About Zeki Demirkubuz by Rasha Salti, ArteEast