Women directors to watch at the Golden Boll

Adana kicks off a week of cinema Monday with the start of the Golden Boll Film Festival, an event that will screen a diverse assortment of more than 190 films from Turkey and around the world.

The most anticipated section of the festival is the National Competition, featuring 12 films selected from a group of 31 competing for a prize of 250,000 Turkish Liras. Other awards that will be presented at the festival are those honoring the Best Director, Best Music, Best Script and Best Cinematographer, along with the Yılmaz Güney Honorary Award and the People’s Choice Award.

The Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review will cover the competing films in two parts. Today, we devote our page to three feature films by three talented women directors, all of which have recently won awards. It is truly impressive to see the number of women directors increasing every year.

Aslı Özge’s ’Men on the Bridge’
Director Aslı Özge knows the lives, hopes, aspirations and disappointments of a generation and class stuck between rural and urban worlds, living quiet lives of crushing chaos.

Her first feature, "Ein Bisschen April" (A Little Bit of April), filmed in Berlin and in German, featured three young men. With her second feature film, "Köprüdekiler" (Men on the Bridge), Özge brings her camera to Turkey and turns her eye to three other male characters, this time setting her movie in Istanbul and filming it in Turkish.

The titular bridge in "Köprüdekiler" is the Bosphorus Bridge, the border between Asia and Europe. And the men in the title are immigrants whose families have come to Istanbul, hoping for better lives.

Fikret sells roses, Umut is a taxi driver and Murat is a traffic policeman. All three live in the suburbs of Istanbul, and each unsuspectingly come to the center of the city, where millions pass every day from one continent to the other at rush hour.

The stories of the three men are based on their real lives, with each man except the policeman playing himself in the movie. (Özge could not get permission for a real policeman to act in her film.) The stories of these three underdogs impressed the jury at the recent International Istanbul Film Festival and the movie went on to win Best Turkish Film at that event.

Pelin Esmer’s ’11’e 10 Kala’
The handful of documentary fans in Turkey know Pelin Esmer from her inspiring, award-winning 2005 film "Oyun" (Play), in which she followed nine peasant women from a village in southern Turkey as they staged a play. In her debut feature, "11’e 10 Kala" (10 to 11), Esmer puts two lonely men at the center of her film, the passionate collector Mithat (Mithat Esmer) and his apartment concierge Ali (Nejat İşler).

With each piece he finds for his vast collection in the underbelly of Istanbul, Mithat reconstructs the city in his mind; it expands and changes as his collection grows. For Ali, Istanbul is no more than the few blocks around the building where he works. When the neighbors decide to rebuild the building due to their fear of an impending earthquake, and the promise of better, more expensive apartments, Mithat and Ali become the equivalent of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, quixotically opposing the neighbors. The two men bond over a common destiny embodied by the struggle to continue the collection, which soon becomes a quest to hand a unique Istanbul down from one generation to the next. "11’e 10 Kala" won the Special Jury Prize in the recent International Istanbul Film Festival.

Yeşim Ustaoğlu’s ’Pandora’nın Kutusu’
Director Yeşim Ustaoğlu made an award-winning return with "Pandora’nın Kutusu" (Pandora’s Box) at last year’s Golden Orange Film Festival. The Golden Boll provides a second chance to catch this tragic tale of a family in crisis.

Ustaoğlu became an internationally known name nearly a decade ago with her groundbreaking feature film "Güneşe Yolculuk" (Journey to the Sun). Her acclaimed documentary "Sırtlarındaki Hayat" (Life on their Shoulders) in 2004, followed by "Pandora’nın Kutusu," marked an impressive comeback. The latter film takes its characters to the Black Sea region, a familiar setting for Ustaoğlu, as three middle-aged siblings journey to their hometown to find their missing, Alzheimer-inflicted mother. French actress Tsilla Chelton, an interesting choice to play the mother, won the Best Actress Award at San Sebastian.

GOLDEN BOLL FILM FESTIVAL PROGRAM

Monday

Cinebonus 1

10 a.m.: "Schools in Cinema" (Special screenings for students)

12:30 p.m. "Secret Face" 3 p.m.: "Schools in Cinema"

5:30 p.m.: "My Childhood" 8 p.m.: "Red River, Black Sheep"

Cinebonus 2

10 a.m.: "Schools in Cinema" 12:30 p.m. "Pardon My French"

3 p.m.: "Schools in Cinema" 5:30 p.m.: "My Only Sunshine"

8 p.m.: "Rumi: The Dance of Love"

Ariplex Reşatbey

12:30 p.m. "The Small Town" 3 p.m.: "Clouds of May"

5:30 p.m.: "Distant" 8 p.m.: "Climates"

Ariplex Cemalpaşa

10 a.m.: "Schools in Cinema"

12:30 p.m. "Four Nights with Anna"

3 p.m.: "Schools in Cinema" 5:30 p.m.: "North"

8 p.m.: "The Silence"


Metropol 1

10 a.m.: "Schools in Cinema"

12:30 p.m. "The Little Boy Who Knew Too Much"

3 p.m.: "Schools in Cinema" 5:30 p.m.: "Djomeh"

8 p.m.: "The Shadowless"


Metropol 2

10 a.m.: "Schools in Cinema"

12:30 p.m. "Despite Everything"

3 p.m.: "Schools in Cinema"

5:30 p.m.: "The Night of Varennes"

8 p.m.: "Secret Ballot"