Black Sun
premiere: 2019 Locarno Film Festival - Pardi di Domani / Pardino d'Oro, Best International Short Film
A coming storm after dog days dawns during a sudden road trip to a distant island for a funeral. The dead is buried in haste and a man makes a detour through Aegean Turkey. The funeral is eclipsed by a last wish. The wind blows ashes where it pleases.
2019 | 1.77:1 | 16mm | 25fps | Color | 5.1 | Turkish, English Subtitles | 20'
Cast
Enes Yurdaün, Seren Şirince, Ariya Toprak, Sencar Sağdıç ve Nur Sürer, Ercan Kesal
Director & Editor: Arda Çiltepe
Scriptwriters: Arda Çiltepe & Julia Tielke
Producers: Alara Hamamcıoğlu (Vigo Film), Öykü Canlı (Yumurta Yapım)
Co-Producer: HFBK Hamburg
Director of Photography: Julia Tielke
Colorist: Nils Petersen
Sound Designer & Mix: Postbıyık
Sound Recordist: Enis Danabaş
Art Director: İdris Kaan Akbay
Assistant Director: Ozan Yoleri
Gaffer: Yusuf Elbaşı
Focus Puller: Elisa Juri
Second Assistant Director: Aslı Özoğuz
Production Coordinators: Sergen Dilmen, Dilara Çatak
Boom Operator: Berkay Sarıtaş
Creative Consultant: Gürcan Keltek
Screenings
2019: Locarno Film Festival / Pardino d’oro for The Best International Short Film, Sarajevo Film Festival - International Competition, Reykjavik Film Festival - International Competition, Seville European Film Festival / EFA Shorts, Uppsala International Short Film Festival/ EFA Shorts, Interfilm Short Film festival / EFA Shorts, Ayvalık Film Festival, Bosphorus Film Festival - National Competition, Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival - National Competition, Passaggi d’autore / Competition, Glasgow Short Film Festival / EFA Shorts, Festival del Cinema Europeo / EFA Shorts, Norwegian Short Film Festival / EFA Shorts, Auteur Film Festival - Competition
2020: İstanbul Film Festivali / Best Short Film, Minimalen Short Film Festival / EFA Shorts, Vilnius International Film Festival / International Short Competition, Tampere Film Festival / EFA Shorts, Portland Film Festival, New Directors / New Films at Lincoln Center, Oberhausen International Short Film Festival / Winners of Other Festivals, VIS Vienna Shorts Festival / EFA Shorts, OFF – Odense International Film Festival (Denmark) / EFA Shorts, Curtas Vila do Conde (Portugal) / EFA Shorts, Dokufest / EFA Shorts, Braunschweig International Film Festival / EFA Shorts, Film Front International Short Film Festival / Short Film Competition, Sharjah Film Festival, İzmir Short Film Festival / National Competition, L'Alternativa Festival de Cinema Independent de Barcelona / National Short Film Competition
About the Director
Before graduating from Economics at Boğaziçi University, he worked as a translator for several major publishing houses in Turkey. He co-produced Meteors (dir. Gürcan Keltek, 2017, Locarno Festival’s Filmmakers of the Present) and Gulyabani (dir. Gürcan Keltek, 2018, Locarno Festival’s Signs of Life). He produced The Pillar of Salt (dir. Burak Çevik, 2018, Berlinale Forum). Besides studying master’s degree in film at Hamburg Fine Arts University, he is the producer of Gürcan Keltek’s next feature project-in-development New Dawn Fades and the co-producer of Semih Gülen and Mustafa Emin Büyükcoşkun’s debut project-in-development Athlete.
Phases of Matter
premiere: 2020 Rotterdam Film Festival - Bright Future Main Programme
Taking place at Cerrahpaşa Faculty of Medicine, Phases of Matter focuses on the doctor who calls the hospital their home, the daily lives of the nurse and personnel, the endless hallways of the hospital, and the faded-colored buildings, the electrical power supply that runs on gossip, and the humour that diligently tries to lighten up death. The film aims to understand life at the hospital by wandering around the doctor’s office, the operation room, the countless other corners where the healthy wouldn’t care to go. ıt observes the talent of the personnel to deal with anything that takes place under this roof, the resistance and the fragility of the body, and the broken country right outside.
2020 | Color | 5.1 | Turkish, English Subtitles | 71'
Director: Deniz Tortum
Producers: Anna Maria Aslanoğlu (istos film), Öykü Canlı (Yumurta Yapım), Aslı Erdem (Beatrice Films)
Co-Producer: Fırat Sezgin (Institute of Time)
Editor: Sercan Sezgin
Director of Photograph: Deniz Tortum
Music: Alican Çamcı
Sound Design: Ernst Karel, Yalın Özgencil
Colorist: James Norman
Screening
2020: Rotterdam Film Festival - Bright Future Main Programme, Golden Orange Film Festival / Best Documentary Film Award, İstanbul Film Festival / Best Documentary Award, Accessible Film Festival / Best Film Award & Best Director Award, Imagine Science Film Festival / Labocine Special Mention
Selection
2020: Museum of Moving Image, NYC / First Look 2020, İstanbul Modern Cinema / Count Us In!
About the Director
Deniz Tortum was born in Istanbul in 1989. His films have screened at many film festivals including Venice Film Festival, Rotterdam, SxSW, Sheffield, True/False and Dokufest. He worked at the MIT Open Documentary Lab focusing on VR research. He curated and produced the new media sections of !f Istanbul and Camden Film Festival. Among his work are the first Turkish film screened at SxSW, ZAYIAT (2013); VR project created with Çağrı Hakan Zaman and Nil Tuzcu, that told the story of Istanbul Pogrom, a government-initiated organized attack on the minorities of Istanbul on September 6-7, 1955, called September 1955 (2016); the documentary If Only There Were Peace (2017), co-directed with Carmine Grimaldi; FLOODPLAIN (2018) which was inspired by the world portrayed in Emre Yeksan’s Yuva; the roadtrip/music documentary Anatolian Trip (2018) co-directed with Can Eskinazi; and PHASES OF MATTER (2020) which made its world premiere in January at the Rotterdam Film Festival.
The Diamond Sea
premiere: 2021 İstanbul Film Festival - Short Film Competition
Earning her living by selling pinwheels, pumpkin seeds and occasionally reciting blessing prayers for couples posing by the sea, a free-spirited peddler roams around the forsaken shores of the Bosphorus. She crosses paths with heartbroken teenagers, confronts an obnoxious admirer, exorcists, and exhibitionists. She mingles with fellow street sellers, fisherwomen, treasure-hunters and garbage collectors, all enclosed in a dreamy microcosm of their own. Like frogs gathered around a pond, they only have each other - and the timeworn, yet still glitter-ing, Diamond Sea.
2020 | 3.00:1 | 2K DCP | 25fps | Color | 5.1 | Turkish, English Subtitles | 18'
Cast
İpek Türktan Kaynak, Ali Seçkiner Alıcı, Mustafa Uzunyılmaz, Hüseyin Sevimli, Şirin Taşpınar, Ulaş Akarsu,
Günsu Sarı, Yenak Özkarslıoğlu, Türev Cin, Ömer Şerif Arısan, Ardan Özmenoğlu, Simge Güneş, Asra Çıra,
Manolya Akdemir, Zeynep Tümertekin, Berktan Alphan, Hülya Ekşigil, Sezer Türksoy, Azade Simavi, Ulaş Yılmaz, Süleyman Simavi
Director & Scriptwriter: Arda Ekşigil
Producers: Sinan Kesova (Vigo Film), Öykü Canlı (Yumurta Yapım), Alara Hamamcıoğlu (Vigo Film)
Co-Producer: Harun Simavi
Director of Photography: Meryem Yavuz
Art Director: Natali Yeres
Editor: Can Eskinazi
Sound Designer: Cenker Kökten
Sound Recordist: Ahmet Burak Gürbüz, Sertaç Selvi
Colorist: *
Assistant Director: Ozan Yoleri
Focus Puller: Neslihan Siligür
Assistant Directors: Manolya Akdemir, Aslı Özoğuz
Make-up Artist: Murat Polat
Set Decoration: Eda Çekemci
Grip: Serdar Karaibiş
DIT: Yusuf Arık, Özgün Ersoy
Second Camera Assistant: Ümit Aksu
Third Camera Assistant: Eren Akgül
Boom Operator: Sinan İnce
Production Assistant: Batuhan Çakma
Catering: Hülya Ekşigil
Transportation: Haluk Ataç, Hüseyin Karaman, Volkan Altunbaş
Generator Driver: Naci Acar
Screening
2021: 40th Istanbul Film Festival / Short Film Competition, 9th Bosphorus Film Festival / National Short Film Competition Best Fiction Short Film, 22nd Izmir Short Film Festival / National Competition
About the Director
Arda Ekşigil is a Turkish-Canadian director born in Istanbul in 1989. After finishing the Lycée Français Pierre Loti in Istanbul in 2007, he studied Ancient Philosophy, Literature and Archeology at the University of Montreal. He obtained a master’s degree from McGill University specializing in early modern Ottoman History. He is currently based in Istanbul and works mainly as a director, screenwriter and translator (translated books: My Brother Che, Can Yayınları, 2017, from French to Turkish).
Zuhal
premiere: 2021 Golden Orange Film Festival - National Feature Film Competition