‘Ecotopia’ unites villagers against eco-villagers

In ‘Entelköy Efeköy’e Karşı’, residents of an Aegean village come face to face with eco-villagers, tired intellectuals from the city. Yüksel Aksu’s anticipated follow-up to ‘Dondurmam Gaymak’ (Ice Cream I Scream) is fun and provides laughs throughout even if some of the characters are caricatures. 

The 1975 novel Ecotopia – or Ecotopia: The Notebooks and Reports of William Weston as the full name goes – by American writer Ernest Callenbach describes one of the very first ecological utopias, where people established their alternative society as a reaction to consumption, food full of chemicals and polluted air.

The Ecotopia in the novel was an inspiration to counterculture and the green movement in 1970s America. And it’s also an inspiration to a bus full of city intellectuals, so-called eco-anarchists, who are hoping to establish their own Ecotopia in a village in Turkey’s Aegean region in director Yüksel Aksu’s second feature, Entelköy Efeköy’e Karşı (Ecotopia).
 
Click here for full article (Hürriyet Daily News)

'Zenne Dancer' stirs controversy on taboo subject

Still two months away from its release date, the award-winning feature ‘Zenne’ (Zenne Dancer) has already managed to stir controversy. The film has scared off one film festival, but another will screen it.

Still two months away from its release date, the award-winning feature Zenne (Zenne Dancer) has already managed to stir controversy. The film has scared off one film festival, but another will screen it.

The award-winning Turkish feature Zenne (Zenne Dancer) will hit screens in mid-January. For the handful of people that have seen advanced screenings of the movie, however, it is already promising to be yet another litmus test of mainstream Turkish attitudes toward a prominent taboo: homosexuality.

The film’s controversial nature arises from its blunt tackling of homosexuality in its relation to traditions, family, state and the military. Co-directed by M. Caner Alper and Mehmet Binay, the film won five Golden Oranges at the recent Golden Orange Film Festival, Turkey’s most prestigious film event. Zenne took home the Best Film Award, the Turkish Cinema Critics Guild’s Best Debut Feature Award, as well as honors for cinematography and best supporting actor and actress.

Click here for full article (Hürriyet Daily News)

Searching for elegies in ‘Future Lasts Forever’

Having impressed the audience with his debut feature, director Özcan Alper shows that waiting is worth while with his second feature. ‘Gelecek Uzun Sürer’ (Future Lasts Forever) is a harrowing journey into the heart of the war in southeastern Turkey, not through political propaganda but through powerful human stories. 

 
For those who had watched Sonbahar (Autumn), the inspiring debut feature from director and writer Özcan Alper that was released two years ago, his next feature had become the source of some true anticipation.

In Sonbahar, Alper took the audience to the Black Sea region, where his hometown is, and told the heartbreaking tale of a political prisoner released after a sentence of 10 years. The film was beautifully shot with real characters, some played by local amateurs, grasping the audience at once from the screen.

For some, Alper was already a promising name with two bizarrely-titled documentaries: Tokai City’de Melankoli ve Rapsodi (Melancholy and Rhapsody in Tokai City) and Bir Bilimadamıyla Zaman Enleminde Yolculuk (Travels On Time Continuum with a Scientist), as well as the critically-acclaimed short film Momi.

Click here for full article (Hürriyet Daily News)

Behzat Ç: Maverick TV detective makes screen debut

The protagonist (or more likely the antagonist) of the cult detective novels and the subsequent TV series, Behzat Ç., returns with a film adaptation. Although ‘Behzat Ç. Seni Kalbime Gömdüm’ (Behzat Ç. I Buried You In My Heart) plays like an extended episode, it will more than satisfy the devoted fans

 Behzat Ç. Seni Kalbime Gömdüm (Behzat Ç. I Buried You In My Heart) might just be the most anticipated Turkish movie for quite some time, filling in movie theaters since last Friday. The film is attracting not just the moviegoers, but followers of Turkish TV and some devoted readers.

Behzat Ç. first won the hearts of little more than a handful readers as the protagonist (or more like the antagonist) in novice writer Emrah Serbes’s detective novel, Behzat Ç. Her Temas İz Bırakır (Every Touch Leaves A Trace), published in 2006. The book was promoted as “an Ankara crime story,” and featured a maverick homicide detective, the Behzat Ç. in the title, an unlikely anti-hero who immediately earned his own cult followers among modern Turkish literature.

Click here for full article (Hürriyet Daily News)