Antalya-Winning Film About More Than Ethnicity
BY UTKU OBUZ (CTE/I)
Director/writer Seren Yüce, Department of Archeology graduate ('98), who won the Lion of the Future Award at the Venice Film Festival, won the big award from Antalya's Golden Orange Film Festival with his first feature film.
After the premiere of Majority in Ankara, Bilkent students and Sinema Topluluğu had a chance to talk with the director. Yüce's film, Majority, takes on issues of how easy it is to be untrue to one's own feelings and bow to the demands of the majority. Yüce wanted to give a statement of his view of what minority and majority mean, not just for ethnic relations but for everyday choices. He explains that the big drama in the movie was about more than the fact of discrimination; it was how a person turns against his own desire in a need to conform.
According to Yüce, most people think that they are in a minority. However, most of us are a part of society's majority. In his film, Yüce has tried to show how we are really obliged to society's or our family's choice, just like the majority of people.
In the film, Mertkan (Bartu Küçükçağlayan) has a simple life. He helps his father's ordinary work and shops and drives with his friends. He never wants to make his life more interesting. One day, it is a chance to change his life when he meets Gül (Esme Madra). However, Mertkan's father (Settar Tanrıöğen) worried about Gül's origins. She is Kurdish. The first time Mert has to face discrimination against Gül, he chooses to be a part of the majority and takes the path of his father.
I suggest that you should watch this film. Everyone has a unique life, a perspective, a class, decisions, love and hate. In this movie, you will find secret parts of your lives. Yüce meant for everyone to examine his or relationship to majority opinion when it comes to any aspect of life.
Yüce was born in Istanbul in 1975. He graduated from Bilkent University Archeology Department and started his cinema career as an assistant director in films of Fatih Akın and Yeşim Ustaoğlu. With his first feature length film Majority, he has come back with three important awards from the Golden Orange: best director (Seren Yüce), best film (Majority), best actor (Bartu Küçükçağlayan).