WHAT A PAIR

A TUGRA KAFTANCIOGLU FILM (BİR TUĞRA KAFTANCIOĞLU FİLMİ)
Turkiye | 35mm, Colour, 85’ | Turkish
Director: Emre Akay
Cast: Emre Akay, Gülüm Baltacıgil, Tuğra Kaftancıoğlu, Mehmet Demirtaş

BOATS OUT OF THE WATERMELON RINDS (KARPUZ KABUĞUNDAN GEMİLER YAPMAK), 2004
Turkiye | 35mm, Colour, 98’ | Turkish
Director: Ahmet Uluçay
Cast: İsmail Hakkı Taslak, Kadir Kaymaz, Gülayşe Erkoç, Boncuk Yılmaz, Hasbiye Günay

The boom that the Turkish cinema experienced in the ‘90s through a few “auteurs” was the incubation period of a “rebirth”. Making a film was still a hard to reach goal. In the 2000s, a period of boom in film production began due to the irrepressible ripening of the society’s need to express and the cost efficiency of wide-spreading digital cameras. At the beginning of this period, two films were made which displayed a surprising competence despite their inexperienced directors and ultra-low budgets, and explored the madness of making a film: Boats Out Of Watermelon Rinds and A Tuğra Kaftancıoğlu Film. Boats Out Of Watermelon Rinds, in which the director Ahmet Uluçay, who lived his entire life in a village, returns to his childhood memories, is the story of first loves and impossibilities that range from making an actual film and trying to build a projection machine in order to hold a screening to the beautiful girl next door. But what Ahmet Uluçay narrates to the audience does not just consist of a simple love for cinema or the difficulties of “being a cinephile in a village”. Uluçay enriches his film with mise-en-scènes about how a filmmaker sees the world in the tediousness of daily life and how he cinematises that in his own perception by imagery that opens door to different evocations–partially Anatolian mysticism–without succumbing to symbolism.

A Tuğra Kaftancıoğlu Film, directed by Emre Akay and Hasan Yalaz, has a structure where documentary and fiction trade places instead of dreams and reality. Through misogynistic/sadistic director Tuğra Kaftancıoğlu’s efforts in building a game, which not only tries to direct the set but also life itself in order to make a “striking film”, many themes such as cinema’s relationship between the concepts of watching and being watched, fame addiction and what is permissible in the name of filmmaking are conveyed with a terrific sense of black humor. Whether its name or nature is passion or madness, there is only one rule when it comes to cinema. Like Tuğra Kaftancıoğlu says, “There are new things and I think we can partner on this… Please continue filming. Very nice. Yes… -Yeşim Tabak