Wim Wenders' "Room 666" is a 45-minute documentary in which he asks several directors to answer questions about the future of cinema. The twist? The year is 1982. See what the directors, including Godard, Spielberg and Herzog, got right about the future and which of their answers could surprisingly still apply today. The film, in its entirety, can be found below.
Wim Wenders - Room 666 (1982) from Cpá TV on Vimeo.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Goethe-Institut | Yılmaz Güney: Master of Euro-Asian Film Culture
May 9 – 21, 2012
Yılmaz Güney: Master of Euro-Asian Film Culture
“An inspiration to countless subsequent directors, including the Turkish-German filmmaker Fatih Akin (Head-On), who has spent the last years preparing a film about his self-declared hero, Güney drew on Italian neorealism to make his deeply humane and passionately committed works about the social reality of his country.” — James Quandt
Yilmaz Güney (1937–1984) is a legendary figure in Turkish cinema. His remarkable career trajectory led him from roles as a popular leading man to a filmmaker so politically dangerous Turkish authorities threw him in prison. Güney and his work became more widely-known in the Western world after his film Yol, banned in Turkey, won a Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1982.
Co-presented with the Freer and Sackler Galleries, Smithsonian Institution.
The Herd has a simple premise that it utilizes to devastating effect: the economic survival of a Kurdish family depends on its ability to drive its herd of sheep from the mountains to Ankara. The film follows the driving of the herd; the constant threats to the livestock and the family serve both as a kind of ethnographic documentary and as existential (and political) parable. Explaining to an interviewer about his use of metaphor and allegory to express himself politically in his films, Güney declared that the subject of The Herd was the history of the Kurds. At the same time, he noted, the film was made in Turkish; any public use of the Kurdish language was illegal at the time.
Wednesday, May 16, 6:30 pm
Followed by discussion with
Goethe-Institut
Yılmaz Güney: Master of Euro-Asian Film Culture
"We're all somehow his
children." — Fatih Akin
“An inspiration to countless subsequent directors, including the Turkish-German filmmaker Fatih Akin (Head-On), who has spent the last years preparing a film about his self-declared hero, Güney drew on Italian neorealism to make his deeply humane and passionately committed works about the social reality of his country.” — James Quandt
Yilmaz Güney (1937–1984) is a legendary figure in Turkish cinema. His remarkable career trajectory led him from roles as a popular leading man to a filmmaker so politically dangerous Turkish authorities threw him in prison. Güney and his work became more widely-known in the Western world after his film Yol, banned in Turkey, won a Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1982.
Co-presented with the Freer and Sackler Galleries, Smithsonian Institution.
Films will be shown in Turkish with English
subtitles.
Wednesday,
May 9, 6:30 pm
The Herd
(Sürü)
Turkey, 1978,
35mm, 129 min., Director: Zeki
Ökten, Screenplay: Yilmaz Güney, Cast: Tarik Akan, Melike Demirag,
Tuncel Kurtiz
The Herd has a simple premise that it utilizes to devastating effect: the economic survival of a Kurdish family depends on its ability to drive its herd of sheep from the mountains to Ankara. The film follows the driving of the herd; the constant threats to the livestock and the family serve both as a kind of ethnographic documentary and as existential (and political) parable. Explaining to an interviewer about his use of metaphor and allegory to express himself politically in his films, Güney declared that the subject of The Herd was the history of the Kurds. At the same time, he noted, the film was made in Turkish; any public use of the Kurdish language was illegal at the time.
Wednesday, May 16, 6:30 pm
Hope (Umut)
Turkey, 1970, 35mm, 100 min., Director: Yilmaz Güney, Cast: Yilmaz Güney, Gülsen Alniaçik, Tuncel Kurtiz, Osman Alyanak
When one of his horses is killed in a car collision, cab driver Cabbar must find a way to keep his large family afloat. Illiterate and in debt to many people, the police do not help him seek justice against the car’s driver, and he is plunged into despair until his friend Hasan suggests that they go and find a mythical buried treasure in the desert. Bringing along a preacher for spiritual guidance, the three men journey across the desert to retrieve the treasure—their last remaining hope.
Turkey, 1970, 35mm, 100 min., Director: Yilmaz Güney, Cast: Yilmaz Güney, Gülsen Alniaçik, Tuncel Kurtiz, Osman Alyanak
When one of his horses is killed in a car collision, cab driver Cabbar must find a way to keep his large family afloat. Illiterate and in debt to many people, the police do not help him seek justice against the car’s driver, and he is plunged into despair until his friend Hasan suggests that they go and find a mythical buried treasure in the desert. Bringing along a preacher for spiritual guidance, the three men journey across the desert to retrieve the treasure—their last remaining hope.
Followed by discussion with
Tom Vick, Film Programmer, Freer
and Sackler Galleries
Sinan Ciddi, Institute of Turkish
Studies, Georgetown University
Asiye Kaya, DAAD Visiting Professor,
BMW Center for German and European Studies
Erju Ackman, Editor, Turkish Cinema
Newsletter
Monday, May
21, 6:30 pm
Yol
Turkey, 1982, 35mm, 114 min., Director: Yılmaz Güney and Serif Gören, Cast: Tarik Akan, Serif Sezer, Halil Ergun, Necmettin Çobanoglu, Hikmet Çelik
This story tells the stories of five prisoners allowed a week to return home. Seyit Ali must contend with the fact that his wife has been discovered working as a prostitute and her family is holding her for Seyit to perform an honor killing. Thief Mehmet Salih must tell his wife that he abandoned her brother while he was being shot at by the police, much to the ire of his in-laws. Ömer, a man from a border village, has to face the consequences of rampant smuggling and tensions with the army. In this dramatic tale, tradition is as much of a prison as a jailhouse itself. Winner of the Palme d'Or at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival.
Turkey, 1982, 35mm, 114 min., Director: Yılmaz Güney and Serif Gören, Cast: Tarik Akan, Serif Sezer, Halil Ergun, Necmettin Çobanoglu, Hikmet Çelik
This story tells the stories of five prisoners allowed a week to return home. Seyit Ali must contend with the fact that his wife has been discovered working as a prostitute and her family is holding her for Seyit to perform an honor killing. Thief Mehmet Salih must tell his wife that he abandoned her brother while he was being shot at by the police, much to the ire of his in-laws. Ömer, a man from a border village, has to face the consequences of rampant smuggling and tensions with the army. In this dramatic tale, tradition is as much of a prison as a jailhouse itself. Winner of the Palme d'Or at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival.
In cooperation with “The Way Home: The Films of
Turkish Master Yılmaz Güney”, at the Freer and Sackler Galleries May 6 – 20.
Visit www.asia.si.edu for full
descriptions and schedule updates.
Acknowledgements:
Special thanks to the Republic of Turkey, Ministry of Culture and Tourism;
Turkish Culture and Tourism Counselor's Office, Washington D.C.; Hüseyin
Karabey, The Güney Foundation; Erju Ackman, Turkish Cinema Newsletter. All film
prints supplied by the Republic of Turkey, Ministry of Culture and Tourism -
General Directorate of Copyright and Cinema / Telif Hakları ve Sinema Genel
Müdürlüğü, Dr. Abdurrahman Çelik, General Director.
The Way Home: The Films of Turkish Master Yilmaz Güney
The Freer and Sackler Galleries | The Way Home:
The Films of Turkish Master Yilmaz Güney
 A master of startling imagery, vigorous storytelling, and political commitment, Yilmaz Güney (1937–1984) is a legendary figure in Turkish cinema and undoubtedly the best-known and most controversial filmmaker the country has produced to date. Copresented with the Goethe-Institut in Washington, DC, this retrospective traces Güney’s remarkable career trajectory, from a popular leading man to a filmmaker so politically dangerous the Turkish authorities threw him in prison. This retrospective was organized by Erju Ackman. Special thanks to the Republic of Turkey Ministry of Culture and Tourism; Turkish Culture and Tourism Counselor’s Office, Washington, DC; Hüseyin Karabey, The Güney Foundation; and Erju Ackman, Turkish Cinema Newsletter. This series features new 35mm prints provided by the Republic of Turkey, Ministry of Culture and Tourism—General Directorate of Copyright and Cinema/Telif Haklari ve Sinema Genel Müdürlügü, Dr. Abdurrahman Çelik, General Director. WEEK OF SUNDAY, MAY 6, 2012 SUNDAY, MAY 6, 2012 The Hungry Wolves/Aç kurtlar Sunday, May 6, 2 pm Both hunter and hunted, a bandit (Güney) lives in a desolate snowscape, beautifully captured in stark black-and-white cinematography. Though he seems invincible, the bandit becomes increasingly desperate to protect his family from his enemies. The film’s emotive musical score recalls Ennio Morricone as surely as its tale of revenge recalls Sergio Leone. Indeed, the stoic, tightlipped determination of Güney’s bandit seems modeled after Clint Eastw… The Poor/Zavallilar Sunday, May 6, 3:30 pm Like so many of Güney’s subsequent films, The Poor is about prisoners. The film opens on a winter night as three convicts are released. A complex structure of flashbacks describes how they came to be imprisoned, revealing that their lives have been marked with betrayal, degradation, and violence stemming from their poverty. At the same time, the film follows the men through the night as they are faced with reentering society. Production of The… FRIDAY, MAY 11, 2012 |
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WEEK OF SUNDAY, MAY 20, 2012
FRIDAY, MAY 11, 2012
The Friend/Arkadas
Friday, May 11, 7 pm
Of all of Güney’s films, The Friend most resembles a European art film. Güney focuses on alienation among the Turkish middle classes by contrasting their empty lives with the struggles of the peasantry. At a seaside resort, a wealthy aristocrat from an impoverished small town finds himself reunited with a childhood friend, played by Güney.
In his directorial role, Güney constructs an Antonionian malaise out of the glassy surfaces of the resort’s…SUNDAY, MAY 20, 2012
The Friend/Arkadas
Friday, May 11, 7 pm
Of all of Güney’s films, The Friend most resembles a European art film. Güney focuses on alienation among the Turkish middle classes by contrasting their empty lives with the struggles of the peasantry. At a seaside resort, a wealthy aristocrat from an impoverished small town finds himself reunited with a childhood friend, played by Güney.
In his directorial role, Güney constructs an Antonionian malaise out of the glassy surfaces of the resort’s…SUNDAY, MAY 20, 2012
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Sunday, May 20, 2 pm
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Sunday, May 20, 3:30 pm
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