Ali Özgentürk Workshop

Fourth year Communication and Design students welcomed the Turkish director, Ali Özgentürk for the third time this semester. Ali Özgentürk is the director of the Turkish films Balalayka and Kalbin Zamanı, and the scriptwriter of Selvi Boylum Al Yazmalım. During his visit here, Mr. Özgentürk shared some challenging methods with the young filmmakers present. He advised COMD students to go outside and observe real people and their faces. He also wanted them to read Turkish writers and find stories that can be adapted into movie scripts.
What do you think about the documentary project you asked the COMD students to make?
Compared with last year, they are now one step forward with the documentary project. The movie that they have made shows quite a difference in the quality of photography.

What is it like to be here at Bilkent?
When I listen to the students here, I discover myself, too. I say many things here for the first time. I begin to know what I know here, because of the students' questions.

You have said that no one can make films other than a moviemaker. But there should be some people or movies that persuade you to be a moviemaker. Who influenced you?
I have loved cinema since childhood. I watched the movies that were cult classics in the cinema: Vittoria de Sica, Roberto Rossalini, Italian Neo Realism, American cinema, John Ford, Hitchcock, French New Wave, Brazen, Antonioni, Francois Truffaut, Luchio Visconti, Einenstein from Soviet cinema and Fritz Lang who developed lighting effects. The cinema is an empire; it moves on with inventions.

People say that Turkish cinema is evolving. There are many movies being made but are they satisfying and do they have good qualities?
Of course they are good, compared with the films made ten years ago. When quantity gets higher, quality gets higher, too. If five movies are made, five of them might be bad. If there are 10 movies made, there is a high probability that there could be a few good ones among them. There is a tendency towards higher quality. Both sound and images are better. Because we are a unique culture, it is hard to be universal. As a result artwork is not always universal. It is hard for directors to be successful every time. It is hard to reach the precipice of movie making, to perfect the lighting, and music and so on perfectly.