Call for Entries: Sarajevo Talent Campus 2011

You may remember that I had the wonderful opportunity to participate as a screenwriter to last year's Sarajevo Talent Campus, and that I posted articles about some of the lectures and sessions we had, like ones with Semih Kaplanoglu, Samuel Maoz, Gaspar Noé ... On top of these great filmmakers, we also had the chance to have a full session with Morgan Freeman (that was an unforgettable experience!).  The whole week was extremely productive and useful, a very rich professional and personal experience. I haven't been as productive as I would have wished to since I got back home and to my day job, but I did work on - and still am developing- some projects. And the Talent Campus definitely boosted me to have faith in my writing and my ideas. 

If you are a filmmaker, producer, screenwriter or actor from Southeast Europe, check out the Sarajevo Talent Campus website to apply for the 5th Sarajevo Talent Campus. The theme this year is Our Time, My Point of View. For more info visit the STC 2011 website.

"Cap ou pas Clap?"

Two weeks ago, I participated to a competition organized by Cinepocket and took the Cap ou pas Clap challenge... The title of the competition comes from Cap ou pas cap in French, which literally translates as "Capable or not capable" and means "do you dare?" 

The challenge was to make a 2-minute movie with a mobile phone within 72 hours. The theme and the rules were revealed on the Friday and deadline to compete was Monday. The theme was "anniversary" and one main directive was that a French component needed to appear in the movie. 

I've chosen an anniversary that is dear to me, the 10th anniversary of the 1999 Marmara Earthquake. You may remember that I had written a post on that day. I've also finalized a screenplay for a short movie (in English) and a short story (in French) around this particular theme. This competition gave me the opportunity to explore another way to tell a story. My "pocket film" is entitled Zelzele, which means "earthquake" in Turkish and comes from Arabic, it is also the title of a Surat of the Qur'an. 

The film was shown with the 10 other selected films at the FIFF (Festival International du Film Francophone, in Namur). The public voted and three films won a prize. Zelzele didn't win any formal prize but it did gather some nice responses from the audience. I'm really happy it could be shown and is now available on different online platforms, and finally on my own blog. 

Sarajevo Talent Campus 2010

I woke up to very good news this morning, receiving an e-mail from the Sarajevo Talent Campus team. "We would like to announce that we have selected 64 participants for the 4th Sarajevo Talent Campus. Our selection committee has thoroughly viewed all the applications and we are happy to inform you that you have been accepted to take part in this year`s Talent Campus. " Aaa those magical words "You have been accepted", it does feel good indeed.

The Talent Campus is organised in the frame of the Sarajevo Film Festival which will take place from 23 to 31 July. I've been willing to go to this festival for quite some time now but always missed it.

The Talent Campus is a one week event that will give the opportunity to young artists to exchange views and ideas among themselves and with film professionals from across the world, through a programme of workshops, lectures, inter-festival excursions, panels and practical tutorials.

I am especially excited that I will be able to share my project about post 1980 Turkey. I have been working on a script, that I am still developing, to explore the repercussions of the military take-over of 1980 on people who live in and outside of Turkey today. Being a Turkish woman living in Europe I am mostly interested in the effects, if any, on the lives of the "exiles" and the "immigrants", and how do we, Turkish/Belgian or Turkish/German or Turkish/Dutch... feel about it and deal with it. Sharing ideas and receiving feedback from other young artists and professionals will definitely be a great experience for me and it will certainly help me develop my writing. And of course I will see plenty of films, which is afterall the best part of a film festival!

I will definitely post as much as I can from Sarajevo, so keep an eye here!

For more information about the Sarajevo Film Festival check: http://www.sff.ba/.

Sex and the City: too many unfair reviews for a very much enjoyable movie

Like most of the series lovers, I've been waiting for "Sex and the City: the Movie" for quite some time. There's been the whole talk about it, then the shooting gossips and finally the reviews. Too many people, including cinema critics I like to read in different newspapers from different countries, almost made me want not to spend 10 euros to go and see the movie in a cinema and wait for it until it gets out on DVD- which by the way shows I still wanted to see it. Then I heard some of my very good friends talking about it in a much better way than the so-called professionals. So I thought, I liked the series and even my boyfriend wanted to see it! So we jumped on our bikes at 8.10pm to get to the 8.30pm show. 2 hours later I can tell you... we had a great time! The four NYC gals were there making me laugh and happy. They were all good, faithful to themselves and not boring at all. I enjoyed watching them, and when I got out of the cinema I just thought of the different reviews I read and they all made nonsense to me -not to say crap. Well, I will sound cliché but it's much better to listen to your friends' advice, at least when it comes to "Sex and the City". It may also be because I absolutely love the series (I got the Shoe Box edition!!). If you still hesitate to go and see the movie, just go. Even if you're not as enthusiastic as I was, you will still spend a nice time with four fabulous girls and a magnificent city! So don't bother waiting for what's not there and just enjoy!