Starting the day, Tony Kaye, the director of the critically acclaimed epic movie “American History X” and the film’s producer John Morrissey, held a very unique master class as part of the first edition of Malatya Film Platform with the moderating of Alin Tasciyan.
As his choice of singing a song written to Malatya for the opening night of the festival rather than making a speech, Tony Kaye started his speech for the masterclass again with an emprovised song mostly saying: “in the hell of compromise”. He shared that he was not happy with some lyrics of his song back in the opening night and rewrote it in his mind over and over again. Morrissey continued telling that this is an example for the creation process. Creation of art is a process that never ends. Then they talked about the “focus” issue in scriptwriting. Tony Kaye reminded of a quote by Steve Jobs: “People think focus means saying yes to the thing you've got to focus on. But that's not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully.” The both talked about how they focused on telling racism and how hatred develops, in American History X, rather than also telling about drugs and other bad things happening in the world.
Morrissey talked about his experience as a consultant and mentor in some Turkish films. He shared his experience on the dissimilarity of the organization system of the crew in Turkey with their way of working. He pointed out the fact that pre-poduction is very important and in Turkey the time and budget given to pre-production is so limited. He underlined the success of TV series of Turkey and said he wants to see the same success on Turkish cinema which he thinks is brilliant and that it has some obstacles on being on the global market.
The colleagues also expanded on the “Hollywood Jail” subject which was valid for Tony Kaye after “American History X” was released. Morrissey explained what happened back then. He said Edward Norton was so manipulative on Michael de Luca on changing the editing and they edited the film without Tony Kaye’s will which is intolerable. So Tony Kaye was so outraged and upset, he advertised against the movie and he acted in a way that could give damage to the release, so for a while Hollywood did not want to work with Tony Kaye.
One of the international guests this year is Nacer Khemir, who is also the head of the International Competition Jury. Born in Tunisia and lived there fascinated by the world of tales since he was a kid, he’s a very successful storyteller and director. He masterfully portrays Sufism in his films. “Wanderers of the Desert”, the first part of a trilogy by him shot in 1984, was screened this afternoon after the masterclass. Director Nacer Khemir answered the questions of the spectators after the screening. The questions were mostly about the film having an open-ended manner of telling. Nacer Khemir reminded that in American cinema, stories are being told in a manipulative way, not giving space to viewers to think and decide on their own and people are used to this language of cinema. However in his cinema he wants to be hospitable and give his seat to the viewers. This statement was applaused by the audience. He also stated that he tried to find a tone for his cinema that is similar to himself, to his family because a director mostly tries to find a style that represents himself/herself, not a mask.
“Yuzlesme (Confrontation)” by N. Demirci and “Tas (Stone)” by O. Eskikoy were the first two films screened today from the national competition part.
“Yuzlesme” focuses on the psychosocial aspects of breast cancer through the lenses of the main character Ebru. “Tas” starts in a village, with a runaway called Selim. He knocks a door and finds himself being embraced by a woman, mistaking him for her missing son, Hasan. “Tas”, director’s second feature, received support from the Karlovy Vary IFF when it was selected for last year’s Works in Progress.
“Mothering” by R. Tavakoli, “Pomegranate Orchard” by I. Najaf and “Cargo” by G.Couiler was also screened today from the International Competition films.
