New film tells of pain of mother
New film tells of pain of mother
Telling the story of a mother and son who had to emigrate to a metropolis in his film 'Butîmar' director Erol Mintaþ added a new chapter to his Mother-Son trilogy. Mintaþ turned his camera to the region for the second film of the trilogy Berf (Snow). Mintaþ tells the drama of Kurdish people living in the claw of military operations and pressures for years with the story of mother Gozel who lost her two sons during the war in Aðrý/Doðubeyazýt. Mintaþ opened a door to consciences by reflecting mothers, who can’t get the corpses of their children for years, children growing up and living in the shadow of helicopters and the sufferings of a folk from yesterday till today.
*How did your short-film project begin to develop?
-I have been planning a short-film project as Mother-Son trilogy for a long time. The first film of the project, 'Butîmar', was made in Ýstanbul. I told the story of a mother and her son who had to emigrate from their village to Ýstanbul and tried to survive in a squatter house. I turned the story of the son collecting papers from garbage to keep his paralysed mother alive in the pincers of urban transformation project hitting the squatter settlement into movie. And now, I am making the second film of the trilogy, Berf. While telling mainly the fight of the son to keep his mother alive in 'Butîmar', in Berf I am telling the proud silence of a mother who can’t get the corpse of her son who died in guerrilla.
*Is this film based on a true story?
-Yes, of course. The mother becomes ill while mourning for her son and as last wish wants her other son to bring her a handful of snow. On the way to do his mother’s last wish real, the son is killed in the thick of operations.
*You gave the film the name Berf (Snow)?
-After her son’s death, the mother spends her days looking at Mount Ararat. She always looks at the magnificent snowy mountain and wants some snow as last wish as her death is drawing near. Clearly to salve her suffering for her son, maybe because she couldn’t be gathered to her son. I am leaving this comment to audience.
*As you handled in your film, today also the bodies of guerrillas who lost their live aren’t given to their families and moreover they are exposed to heavy tortures and buried in unattended graves. What will you say about that?
- This is clearly a significant violation of human rights. The body of someone killed must be showed respect. There doesn’t exist any such application in international war agreements. Just as the body of a dead soldier is given ti his family, the body of a dead guerrilla must also be given to their families as a humane necessity. We anyway have to show respect for the dead as a part of humanity.
*You stayed in Gültepe village of Aðrý Doðubayazýt for nearly two weeks for the shooting of the film Berf. Why did you choose Doðubayazýt as the place of the movie?
-While shooting the film in Doðubayazýt, I actually wanted to experience the region at close range and wanted to reflect the truth there by means of cinema. I wanted to route audience to thoughts, not to aggravate them. The film starts with an abandoned body that is not given to the family. Who can an abandoned body belong to in this country? This is the point audience must think of. I side with audience. I don’t like it when everything is available to audience.
*What kind of difficulties did you live during the shooting of the film?
- For example, I couldn’t leave a performer coming from the skirts of Mount Ararat as gendarmes are on guard duty at the inlet of the village by 18.00. This was the only legal obstacle we met. Other difficulties were geographical, technical and economical ones. Economical problems are anyway the endless problem of independent film-makers.
*There haven’t been sufficient views on this subject in cinema art, isn’t it?
-I think it will be wrong to say that as there are workings reflecting these problems.
*What do you think are necessary for a further progress in developing Kurdish cinema?
-I find three points significant for the development of Kurdish cinema; using its own geography, own language and creating its own performers. The production must of course be increased as well.
*For the film, you used people from the region. Was it a conscious choice?
-Yes, in Istanbul we couldn’t find an actress who knows Kurdish and could take the role of the mother; so we went to the village and looked around there. At first, people behaved timid as there had been some others who collected money from them saying that they are making serial. However, we later convinced people and chose four people to take roles in the film. They adapted to camera quickly because our story is reflecting the truth there. The film’s being in Kurdish was also effective in their being convinced. Their roles in their own language without any difficulty made them more aspirational. I am happy with the result. We owe conscience to our own language. Although not being just as I wanted, I feel the contentment of being able to reflect something with this short-movie. That’s why I want to keep my language alive in my own cinema works. Our language has always came up as a political matter, however our language isn’t only a political tool but also the language of philosophy, literature, music and science as all others. Our artistic and scientific works must serve for this aim.
*What is the role of media when West doesn’t understand that?
-Media surely plays a big role there but in my opinion, children don’t have to wake up with helicopter sounds, the giving of the corpses or cultures don’t need to be forbidden for the people in West to understand the people in the region. This an understandable and sensitive matter for all thinking people with conscience and soul. We must only grow away from the teachings and understand each other as human. We may not be brothers and sisters but we can be friends and allies. After all, with friendship and amity ties people become more equal and accept each other as they are themselves, beyond compulsions.
We don’t have to experience a bombardment to be a good judge of someone having experienced that. I, for example, remember a small girl acting in my film while drinking a coffee on a beautiful district in Ýstanbul, I remember the helicopter flying on that young in her village. So, you can not feel at ease. The most important point here is conscience, not only attitude of media. People mustn’t tout on war while living freely in metropolitan. The life of neither a soldier nor a guerrilla must be so cheap. Everybody must think of it. I anyway didn’t intend to show the war with this film, I wanted to reflect the influence of the war on the daily life of people in the region and to transpose what the war takes away from their lives.
*Which theme do you want to handle in the third and last part of the trilogy?
-As I’ve stated before, I think Kurdish people must create their own performers in their own language and own geography. That’s why the third and last part will be a film telling the “return”. A story starting in Ýstanbul will end in village, it will be the story of a return. I will transfer my productions in the region to this side because I want to tell my hometown on-site, not with a view from Ýstanbul. As film-makers, we must use our cameras in our geography rather than weapons. It may sound romantic but this may also turn out to a cinema movement. We must compel the civil channels with artistic productions. We must find more creative ways. We must give effort to turn the life into normal and produce more for this. Production must be our biggest defence movement.
Translator: Berna Ozgencil
*How did your short-film project begin to develop?
-I have been planning a short-film project as Mother-Son trilogy for a long time. The first film of the project, 'Butîmar', was made in Ýstanbul. I told the story of a mother and her son who had to emigrate from their village to Ýstanbul and tried to survive in a squatter house. I turned the story of the son collecting papers from garbage to keep his paralysed mother alive in the pincers of urban transformation project hitting the squatter settlement into movie. And now, I am making the second film of the trilogy, Berf. While telling mainly the fight of the son to keep his mother alive in 'Butîmar', in Berf I am telling the proud silence of a mother who can’t get the corpse of her son who died in guerrilla.
*Is this film based on a true story?
-Yes, of course. The mother becomes ill while mourning for her son and as last wish wants her other son to bring her a handful of snow. On the way to do his mother’s last wish real, the son is killed in the thick of operations.
*You gave the film the name Berf (Snow)?
-After her son’s death, the mother spends her days looking at Mount Ararat. She always looks at the magnificent snowy mountain and wants some snow as last wish as her death is drawing near. Clearly to salve her suffering for her son, maybe because she couldn’t be gathered to her son. I am leaving this comment to audience.
*As you handled in your film, today also the bodies of guerrillas who lost their live aren’t given to their families and moreover they are exposed to heavy tortures and buried in unattended graves. What will you say about that?
- This is clearly a significant violation of human rights. The body of someone killed must be showed respect. There doesn’t exist any such application in international war agreements. Just as the body of a dead soldier is given ti his family, the body of a dead guerrilla must also be given to their families as a humane necessity. We anyway have to show respect for the dead as a part of humanity.
*You stayed in Gültepe village of Aðrý Doðubayazýt for nearly two weeks for the shooting of the film Berf. Why did you choose Doðubayazýt as the place of the movie?
-While shooting the film in Doðubayazýt, I actually wanted to experience the region at close range and wanted to reflect the truth there by means of cinema. I wanted to route audience to thoughts, not to aggravate them. The film starts with an abandoned body that is not given to the family. Who can an abandoned body belong to in this country? This is the point audience must think of. I side with audience. I don’t like it when everything is available to audience.
*What kind of difficulties did you live during the shooting of the film?
- For example, I couldn’t leave a performer coming from the skirts of Mount Ararat as gendarmes are on guard duty at the inlet of the village by 18.00. This was the only legal obstacle we met. Other difficulties were geographical, technical and economical ones. Economical problems are anyway the endless problem of independent film-makers.
*There haven’t been sufficient views on this subject in cinema art, isn’t it?
-I think it will be wrong to say that as there are workings reflecting these problems.
*What do you think are necessary for a further progress in developing Kurdish cinema?
-I find three points significant for the development of Kurdish cinema; using its own geography, own language and creating its own performers. The production must of course be increased as well.
*For the film, you used people from the region. Was it a conscious choice?
-Yes, in Istanbul we couldn’t find an actress who knows Kurdish and could take the role of the mother; so we went to the village and looked around there. At first, people behaved timid as there had been some others who collected money from them saying that they are making serial. However, we later convinced people and chose four people to take roles in the film. They adapted to camera quickly because our story is reflecting the truth there. The film’s being in Kurdish was also effective in their being convinced. Their roles in their own language without any difficulty made them more aspirational. I am happy with the result. We owe conscience to our own language. Although not being just as I wanted, I feel the contentment of being able to reflect something with this short-movie. That’s why I want to keep my language alive in my own cinema works. Our language has always came up as a political matter, however our language isn’t only a political tool but also the language of philosophy, literature, music and science as all others. Our artistic and scientific works must serve for this aim.
*What is the role of media when West doesn’t understand that?
-Media surely plays a big role there but in my opinion, children don’t have to wake up with helicopter sounds, the giving of the corpses or cultures don’t need to be forbidden for the people in West to understand the people in the region. This an understandable and sensitive matter for all thinking people with conscience and soul. We must only grow away from the teachings and understand each other as human. We may not be brothers and sisters but we can be friends and allies. After all, with friendship and amity ties people become more equal and accept each other as they are themselves, beyond compulsions.
We don’t have to experience a bombardment to be a good judge of someone having experienced that. I, for example, remember a small girl acting in my film while drinking a coffee on a beautiful district in Ýstanbul, I remember the helicopter flying on that young in her village. So, you can not feel at ease. The most important point here is conscience, not only attitude of media. People mustn’t tout on war while living freely in metropolitan. The life of neither a soldier nor a guerrilla must be so cheap. Everybody must think of it. I anyway didn’t intend to show the war with this film, I wanted to reflect the influence of the war on the daily life of people in the region and to transpose what the war takes away from their lives.
*Which theme do you want to handle in the third and last part of the trilogy?
-As I’ve stated before, I think Kurdish people must create their own performers in their own language and own geography. That’s why the third and last part will be a film telling the “return”. A story starting in Ýstanbul will end in village, it will be the story of a return. I will transfer my productions in the region to this side because I want to tell my hometown on-site, not with a view from Ýstanbul. As film-makers, we must use our cameras in our geography rather than weapons. It may sound romantic but this may also turn out to a cinema movement. We must compel the civil channels with artistic productions. We must find more creative ways. We must give effort to turn the life into normal and produce more for this. Production must be our biggest defence movement.
Translator: Berna Ozgencil
