My first question is about the increasing popularity of the documentary. Do you agree that there is a boom in documentary and if so for what reason?

Yes and I think there are a range of reasons. Of course, one is the democratization of the cameras and all the editing equipment. They became both much cheaper and easier to handle. So, it is almost natural that we now see a boom in directors and new production companies investing specifically in this genre. And we should also not forget the role of recent European audiovisual policies. Furthermore, documentaries are a powerful tool both for reflecting upon the world, and especially in an image based society, and reflecting upon concepts such as reality, image, and so forth. Furthermore, in conceptual and formal terms, it is a quite open and malleable ground, that can be used not only to explore the potential of the cinematographic and artistic languages but to consider the nature of cinema itself.

You cited the reasons for Portugal but the boom for the documentaries is true for the whole world. Maybe the reason behind is the need for alternative channels for information away from the global actors. Do you think this is a kind of movement against globalization?

I am not sure that we can go so far as to say there is some movement against globalization; occasionally, yes, but the problem is always finding a way of presenting and discussing the works themselves, to circulate them — this is certainly not easy in Portugal. Regarding TV channels, as far as documentary is concerned, they tend to impose specific formats so any novelty or difference in approach is killed off from the start…

For example, in Turkey we have CNN Turk. The same major channels are everywhere they have the same format, the same misinformation. This creates its opposite in a dialectical way. Another reason is of course the drop in the price of equipment makes the situation convenient for filmmakers.

Yes, of course, but I think we must not forget the other side as well: today it is also a bit fashionable to make documentaries.

Is this true also for the feature films?

I don’t think so.

Are you going to do only documentaries or are you planning to make a fiction film?

This is an interesting question because when I started to study cinema I wanted to do fiction films; documentary was a completely distant area to me. It was a kind of out of coincidence that I started making documentaries. In the 90s, I received an invitation to make a documentary on Portuguese cinema between 1930 and 1945, a very relevant period of the dictatorship. It was my first experience with documentaries that used archive material. But it was not until the next documentary that I decided definitely to start making documentaries and to work on archival image in a completely different way to what I had been doing before. Regarding the fiction world, I do not rule it out but for me fiction will be always connected to documentaries. As a matter of fact, I am currently working on a project that lies on the borderline between fiction and documentary.

In all this boom, what are the subjects for documentaries in Portugal? Could you make a classification? We ask this question because we think that your documentary is exceptional.

It is always hard to make classifications because the subjects and the ways of filming them are quite diverse. We have documentaries about contemporary social and anthropological issues, biographical documentaries, especially about artists and writers, historical documentaries, etc, etc… As for the historical, generally the format is very typified: interviews, voice over and archive image used in illustration of the past. They follow a methodology close to the TV formats. On the other hand, we have seen a very strong line of observational documentaries. We have also more personal and experimental works. Although much rarer, they are significant within the Portuguese documentary panorama.

(My) First question about your film; did the idea or the material come first? Did you have the idea at the beginning?

Actually, the material came first. The idea for this documentary, Still Life, appeared the moment I first entered the archive of the political police. After having spent several days on reading files, I discovered quite a few huge albums containing hundreds of photographs of the political prisoners. I was rather impressed by the power of those images but at the same time I was not able to speak about them. I was left speechless. So in a way my film represents the translation of that moment.

The film footage is also from the police archive?

The film footage comes mainly from four sources: the political police, from RTP (the Portuguese state television channel), from ANIM (the National Archive of Moving Images) and the Army archives.

It seems as though discussion about the dictatorship in Portugal is alive at the moment.

Yes you are right. What we are witnessing, as Fernando Rosas, one of the most important Portuguese historians, usually puts it is a struggle for the hegemony of the memory. In other words, a struggle about what will be considered “real history” in the near future. As a matter of fact, there are two major opinions on the April 25th revolution and what it meant for Portuguese history. One camp says that revolution was as an uprising against an authoritarian regime based on oppression, violence and control of people’s mind and therefore positive. The other group – and in my opinion this interpretation is especially now growing stronger and stronger – claims that the revolution interrupted a transitional process towards democratic society. And this group of people correspondingly denies the violent aspect of the 48 years of Portuguese fascism and wants to keep it buried in the past.

And there is another problem. Out of natural causes, the generation of people who actually experienced the dictatorial regime and its real nature will be disappearing sooner rather than later. And this means that the elites in the academic, artistic, social and cultural field will dictate the collective memory of the past and the witnesses who could actually say that these times were different will no longer be alive.

One classic example of what I am trying to say here is the building that used to be the former headquarters of the political police, a very powerful place and symbolic of the regime. This place where many people were tortured, is to be transformed into luxury flats. In other words, this place that serves as an ideal point on which to anchor memory will be erased and made forgotten.

Indeed, this process of erasing our own memory is wrapped up in the subject of our next film.

What was the discussion around the film in Portugal given this situation?

Still Life – Natureza Morta

To me it was rather shocking because when the film was shown, the first reaction from the film critics was to dismiss it. They almost denied its existence declaring “this is not a documentary, this is a film without words, this is a film without contextualization, an anachronism”. (As a matter of fact, those were the very fundamental principals of the film!) One film critic even said that the devil should take this film which in Portuguese is really rather an unpleasant expression.

It is a kind of hate.

Yes, the reactions were rather aggressive.

They don’t want to see these images maybe. But how do intellectuals find the film?

Of course we also had positive reactions, some very positive. We had good film reviews; the problem was that they came later.

Another question here is the fact that in Portugal we don’t discuss such things deeply. I mean, there is nothing that could be called a real “public space”. This idea was very well expressed by the Portuguese philosopher José Gil in his book, Portugal Today: the Fear of Existing. When a cultural object (book, film, etc.) enters into the public space it undergoes treatment on multiple layers that in turn transforms it so that by the time the work returns to its author it has already become a new object. It has been thought about, discussed and its meaning has become broader. My film, when it returned to me after some weeks of exhibition, felt like nothing: It was as if I was holding a blind zombie in my arms!

“Whether this is a documentary or not” was not subject to discussion.

I agree. There was never much real discussion about the important issues apart from debates that were organized during the theatrical release.

What were the results of the dictatorship, how many people died, how many suffered?

This is not any mere question of quantification. It is more a question of how the dictatorship still continues to exist in the minds of people. No doubt many political prisoners were brutally tortured and some were killed. And there was a long lasting colonial war, with many dead and left incapacitated, which is still a trauma for many Portuguese. And there were certainly battalions of informers whose identity and exact number will never be known.

There must be some estimates.

No, there are no official numbers apart from the dead from the colonial war. Only recently has the first PhD dissertation on the political police been completed. However, more important than the numbers is the way the regime affected the whole population.

How did that regime end?

Salazar got old and literally fell off his chair. He died from the subsequent brain stroke. He was substituted by Marcelo Caetano. Six years later, Caetano was overthrown by the Carnation Revolution.

Why did you decide to make your film silent? On the other hand the music of the film was very particular.

For me, this is also the result of a reflection on image and history. The question is how history can be shown through documentary. What is usually done in historical documentaries is to build a logical discourse that tends to explain the past. We tend to follow the words and mostly don’t pay real attention to the images. They are just there to carry the narrative and, even worse, the spectator frequently ends up by confusing an image of an event in the past with the actual event.

So, another important aspect of this film was the assumption that an event in the past can never be an objective fact — it is always a fact of memory. The idea of an objective past fact is an epistemological myth. In my perspective, this was one the most important principles to this film. I’m not trying to find a truth in the past and bring this truth into the present. I wanted to make a reflection on the past while also dealing with the memory and with all the knowledge of the present. In this sense, the film is also a reflection on the present.

Regarding the use of archive material, one of my intentions was the questioning of the image itself. My intent was to show images without any pressure from the words, without a speech that commands how we read what we see. Like Didi-Huberman said —the French philosopher whose thesis inspired my work — there is always a dilemma: either you know or you see. The ideal is a dialectic relationship between both. But from the beginning, my option was to move into the field of ‘to see’ so that we didn’t lose the real image. Within this framework of ideas, it was no longer possible to locate the image in terms of time and space and follow a chronology. This is why I left out the words completely.

Did you use the images and footage chronologically?

No, I had a kind of a main chronology: the first years of the dictatorship and its peak, the post-war period, including Portugal joining NATO, the colonial war of the 1960s and then the revolution of April 1974. But the film itself is not chronological and it doesn’t follow any linear narrative sequence – this was another essential element in its construction and the role of the music was essential to building this structure.

I have to say that the editing was the most difficult part of the whole process because editing the material I had gathered was like dealing with a kaleidoscope. Whenever I changed an image in the film, the entire film suddenly became different. And then you start realizing that you can do whatever you want with an image: should you want to, that image can say “a” just as easily as it can say “b”. So, it was difficult to get images interacting in a way that did not subvert their meaning. But the whole point of the editing was to penetrate in and open up the image and not to direct the viewer to read it in any unequivocal way. When looking at Eisenstein’s third image, that strikes the spectator’s spirit through the juxtaposition of the two images, you understand that it is a controlled image. On the other hand, the third image in Godard is not subject to narrative issue or any prior desire of the direct to induce any specific reading on a context specific to the film. Much depends on the spectator, the understanding, their own memories… I think this is a point shared with a certain kind of contemporary films that reflect on the actual nature of the image.

I think also that the dialectics of Godard’s cinema are closer to your film. It is really a creative narration. You are taking the side of your narration. The faces, details, eyes… You created an atmosphere. Another part was the slow motion usage of the footage. You gave time for the audience to think. It completes the idea. Some documentaries claim that they are objective especially documentaries using archives but it always depends on the filmmaker depending on the image is used. For example, I remember the documentary about the Spanish civil war, “El Perro Negro: Stories from the Spanish Civil War”. The director used the archive of a rich man and tries to pull away from the two sides fighting. As a result, he began to support the right wing, the winners of the war. On the other hand I criticize the film because I am taking sides. Your attitude is very different.

Of course I am not indifferent, I take a side. If another director had worked those images it would have been a completely different film. However, one of my principals was never to subvert the image itself. This was one of the greatest difficulties I encountered. Even without using a single word through editing you can construct whatever the discourse, even contradictory, from those images. This is why some of the aesthetical options I took in the film were a consequence of my ethical self-restrictions.

You mentioned the issue of digital production that leads to alternative ways of distribution. Do you believe that technology on the level of distribution is on the same level as the technology of production? Do you believe that the films that are produced digitally can find a different distribution, for example through the internet, and can bring back profit to the films in this way?

It is not only the internet that can distribute digital films, it is also the distribution through cell phones and other ways. If am not mistaken, 40% of the cinema theaters in USA are also ready to receive digitally produced films. The problem really is on the independent movie theaters that are in danger of vanishing because the change of the technology costs a lot of money that they cannot afford. The big distribution companies will pay for their cineplexes to get the same technology that already exists in their theaters in USA, but that means that we will have the danger of showing even more american films because they will demand world premieres at the same time in millions of viewers in different countries and they will have the abillity and the technology to do so. So the cinema of small countries is in danger. Off course, all this is still a theory, we discuss the issue a lot in France and we are trying to find solutions for the problem. As far as the positive side of the issue is concerned, we can have new small theaters in small towns, that do not demand neither very specialised technicians nor amazing technology, that will be able to receive the films directly in digital form via a phone or in another manner. The process will be much cheaper because as you know it is the film copies that are extremely expensive in the distribution process.

French cinema is very strong. Especially the last five years France is the first in Europe in the number of tickets, french cinema posesses 35% of the french market and 9% of the European market. To what do we owe this facts?

French cinema is a political will. In the era after the II World War, De Gaulle decided that France should have cinema. Since then all the goverments and all the political parties in power helped in order to continue to have french cinema. I insist that it is a political will and I personally do not believe that it is possible for a state to have national cinema without a very strong political will. The french system is like that: There is the Cinema Centre which is the intermediate between the filmmakers and the government and threre are the factors that create the problems, such as for example was between 1950-60 the television. It seemed at that time that tv would kill cinema. The cinema center, the filmakers and the tv people met in order to find a solution and to be able to cosurvive. They found solutions then, the big tv chanels had to give a part of their budget (2-3%) in film production. Another example is that on Saturday night the tv chanels are not allowed to show films, they can have any other show in their progarm but not a film. In this way we help the viewers to go out to the cinema theaters. Those are decisions that help French cinema to be strong. It is not off course as strong as american cinema because of cultural reasons first but also because of the lack of pressure world wide. The French government does not have navy in the Mediterrenean and does not have military bases all over the world. Every time there is a crisis like that, every 5-10 years there is a crisis, these people come together and find solutions. Cinema is an art and art lives with crisis but especially the crisis in cinema are stronger because cinema is an art directly connected with economy.

You shot your last film in Algeria and lately many directors shoot their films in other countries for tax redemption reasons. How do you feel about that?

Mon Colonel was shot in Algeria and in Paris because that is where the story takes place. Off course I had to go to other countries to shoot a film because of budgeting reasons. I shot Amen in Roumania because it was cheaper and that is normal. As long as the vision of the director who is the creator of the film does not change that is ok.

When we move to digital technology what are the consequences for the art work? Do we lose some dimentions from the work?

Laurent Herbie, who is the director of Mon Colonel decide to shoot part of the film in digital technology ( the black and white part) and in film the color part. Off course there are diferrences between the cameras and there is difference in the colors and the depth of field. This is normal, it is something that will bring a difference in aesthetics and every time the aesthetics change something new comes out of it, usually very interesting.

As far as your work is concerned is there a relation between your social problematic and the technical means you use in order to realise your films?

Excuse me for speaking about myself, I prefer questions about cinema, but anyway. When we were making Z we did not have money and we were making it with a small camera, Camerflex. For the sound we had to put the camera in a box in order to have the dialog, but the box (plimp) was not good so we had to cover it with blankets. When I went to the USA to present the film everybody was amazed that we shot it in such a cheap way. The problem is not what kind of cameras we have but what we put in front of them and how we use them. Although we had these dificulties the way that I wanted to make the film did not change at all and I think this is the most important thing.

In your films except form the exterior rhythm there is an interior rhythm which I believe balances between your wrath for the issues you examine and your personal calmness. Am I right?

In my films I am interested in the victims of situations that could be all of us and the resistance that we can put up as human beings in the situatuions that surpress us, not only political but also sentimental. My point of view is usually the one of the viewer because I still am a viewer of cinema. My motives are always the human feelings that we experience love, hate, sorrow because I believe that they are the only things that represent something in life.

We see that small countries, Iran for example, in the last years manage to produce good films that find distribution and acceptance abroad. Greece on the contrary who has small budgets but is in a much better political situation, does not manage to make films that find acceptence neither in the interior of the country nor abroad. Why do you think this happens beyond the economical reasons?

It is true we do not see many greek films in France, I think it is because of marketing and distribution reasons, It is difficult for me to answer that question because I am not qualified. But I know for example that Korean cinema has a lot of success in France and Korea is a bigger country than Greece but not that big.

But in Korea the cinema was very much sustained by the goverment and there was a political will for a national cinema.

When you make ten films per year you can have one very good film and two good ones. When you make 50 films you can have five very good films. The Koreans decided one day to have national cinema. So they said that for 120 days per year every theater will show only Korean films. So within 5-10 years the film production grew and now they make amazing films because they produced a lot and it was possible for the talents to express themselves.

Do you believe that in greek films there is a problem of screenplay?

Yes this is a problem we also have in France. I believe there area lot of good ideas in both greek and french films that are not developped fully so the result is not good. In France we had the auteur theory but actually if you look at the history of cinema very few are the ones who did their films all alone like Bergman and Goddard. Most of the filmmakers collaborate with a screenwriter. But in France the auteur theory has expanded so much that finally it harms filmmaking.

Two years ago Abbas Kiarostami was here and he said that in the beginning he was very enthousiastic with didgital technology and he also shot some films in it. Later he concluded that the same way there are licenses for gun owners there should be licences for people who carry digital cameras meaning that the cheapness and the carelessness with which we can shoot digitally is dangerous. What do you think?

I think that films come from inside of the filmmaker from his feelings and his/her mind whether he knows or not technique. We have a lot of examples of people we have no technique but have made great films.

I would like to ask in which way you colaborate with the composer who scores your films.

The music in a film for me is a very important part of the sound. It is a character, it has a dramatic role in the film. I like from the composer to give me different trial pieces of music which I put on the scenes and I try to see if they fit or not. I do not like the other way practiced in filmmaking: when they finish the editing they bring the composer and they tell him to write the music. I think it is unacceptable. My biggest problem was with Z. I wanted to use Mikis Theodorakis’ music but he was in prison. We managed to reach him in prison, told him about the film and he gave a small piece of paper in which he was allowing me to chose anything I wanted from his music. We took the music with an arranger, we found people playing bouzoukia in Belgium and we brought them in Paris and we remade the music of Mikis in order to be as long as the scenes.

Would you like to tell us about the economic problem in filmmaking?

I think this is the biggest problem of all in the european cinema. The national budgets for filmmaking are not big enough although there is an efford to augment them. The good think that happens in europe the last years is the coproductions between two and three countries that put money for a film. There is also a big problem with the distribution of films. We are trying to find a distribution system with the Eurocinemas in order to push the films of other european countries to other european countries. We still have not reached a final solution but I think in a while we will be able to find this system.

Why did you chose the area of fiction film to make your social-political comments and not the documentary film which in our days has a different dynamic?

Documentary is a very difficult genre, much more difficult than fiction films. We have very few good documentarists in france but hundrends of fiction directors. I have from time to time ideas for documentaries but I do not know if I will be able to succeed.

You have an economic luxury, you can find easily money for your films are you not interested in making a film about a subject of the greek reality?

You are wrong it is not easy for me to get money for my films. Because of the context of my films it is not easy to find money. It depends from the theme, if you make a film that is a thriller or a comedy it will be easier to find the money for the production than for a film like Amen or Mon Colonel. These are the problems you will have all the time if you want to be film directors, you will never escape from them.

How important do you think it is for a young director to have a political way of thinking in his/her films?

Roland Barthes said that there is no film that is a-political. There is politics in every film. In life we can not escape from politics and by politics I do not mean what you are voting for. Politics for me is the way of living, the way we behave towards the others and the way we resist the others. And generally our behaviour within society.

(Masterclass organised by Thessaloniki Film Festival)

Interview with the director of “My Father The Turk”, Marcus Atilla Wetter. We had a chance to meet him during International Istanbul Film Festival, 2008.

Marcus Vetter graduated in 1991 in Economics and in 1994 in Media Theory and Practice. His studies included residences in Buenos Aires and Madrid as well as practical internships in the media and film business. He was selected for the Discovery Campus Master School 2004, a 10-month European training programme in international co-productions in the nonfiction sector. Since 1994 he has been working as a TV editor, producer and director at ARD/SWR in Baden-Baden and Stuttgart. He received attention at national and international film festivals and won numerous prizes, among others 3 Adolf Grimme Awards. Currently, he is working on a film project called “Cinema Jenin” about a father of a Palestine boy killed by Israeli soldiers as they confused his toy weapon with a real one. Among his films and documentaries are: “The Tunnel”, “Ein Schweinegeld”, “War games”, “La Florida”, “Streets of the Duped”, “The Unbreakables”, “My father the Turk”.

First of all we want to ask you how the reactions of the audiences were to your documentary in Turkey. What did you think about this reaction?

The reactions of the audiences were incredible. So, we have travelled with this film all over the world and we had no such reaction more than we did in Turkey. Here it was really incredible. The film has so far touched the people in Germany and almost 6 million people saw it there, because it has been screened almost ten times in television. We got a lot of reaction from Turkish people and German people. I received one hundred letters each time the film was screened. Also it was shown in some festivals in the world. But nowhere reactions were so deep like here. Because the reaction here was people screaming, laughing and crying in some parts. This was a huge experience. We hadn’t expected that. For this reason we thought it should be shown in Turkish cinemas. We are reluctant to show it on Turkish television. Some of them offer but we don’t want to. We are searcing for the possibility of a movie theater release. In Germany, television is different because in there a lot of people just watch TV when they want to watch a film. But in Turkey, unfortunately most of the people just watch and eat at the same time. So I thought it would be great to find, or at least try to find, an opportunity to show it in movie theaters. This is my dream.

Was its first screening in İstanbul?

Yes, the festival was where we did the first screening.

I mean the film first came to Turkey. But your film was made in 2006 but we couldn’t get the chance to watch till now. Why did you wait?

I didn’t wait for so long. The first screening was in Istanbul in 2006 in Tünel Cafe. I rented a little projector and invited my family and people publicly. I was alone so I didn’t have so much support. Because the film was made for the German television and the television is an entertaintment medium; televison and nothing else. They don’t really know what kind of movie they have in their hands. We had 60 people in Tünel cafe in 2006. It was the premiere.

We have a documentary film festival in Turkey and other festivals so we thought that you were invited to them before.

It is always the same. You need someone to organize all of these. This year I applied to Istanbul Internatonal Film Festival. The problem is that I don’t own the rights. The TV station does. All the time I have had to deal with that so much. But now I am going to get the rights just for Turkey. If I buy the rights, I can try to screen it in the Turkish cinemas.

We support your wish but we have some bad news. For example, “Beyoğlu cinema” which screened your movie in the festival will be closed soon.

Why?

Financial issues. Less people are going to see movies in the theatres. Or “Taksim Theatre” which is in the centre of Taksim is closed and they are selling kebabs in there. There are very dramatic developments nowadays. Cultural degeneration.

Unfortunately, everywhere is like that.

Can we get more imformation about your cinema experience? Your film was a biographical documentary and we want to know more about your cinema experience.

The first 90-minute documentary that I made was The Tunnel. It was a film about the tunnel which was underneath the road of the Berlin Wall that was built in 61. It tells the story of two Italian guys and 29 German students from the Technical University. When the wall was built in Germany they tried to dig a tunnel in order to get relatives or friends through this tunnel to West Germany, to West Berlin. This was the first feature documentary I made. It was very successful because it tells a story that symbolizes our divided Germany. I could work with accurate material because that time the documentary team from the US embassy were filming how they digged the tunnel from the very beginning to the end. So it was a unique material because the camera team was always with them.

Then I began to make a lot of movies about the economy. The reason is that as an approach to films I have always chosen the science of the time. This means that these films have to be done now and this very moment. I have a critical point of view of the economic situation. I have a thought that capitalism is on its final stage of this cycle. That is why I was very interested in the economy and I did a movie which was about day traders who are people that were trading grain or popbelly or, sugar. They go to the market, stay for five seconds in the market until in order to make his slim difference. It was the first film I made about the economy. It was very interesting because I potrayed ordinary people, housewives who are suddenly trading sugar or grain. I was very interested because capitalism became something for ordinary people who we do not think would work any more and try to gamble with money. This was in 1980 and the first film.

In 2001 when the stock market crashed all over the world I did my second film. It was about a company which was a high flyer in the stock market. It went up like 25000 percent in two years. That was the moment when I thought we were in a real bubble and everybody was just thinking about stocks but not about working anymore. So, I made a film about real lives. These two guys were entrepreneurs of this company which was called EMTV. The film’s title is Where the Money Grows. These two guys come from a little village in the south of Germany. They normally have only farmer’s land. They thought they should grow in order to make beer. So, the farmers suddenly bought stocks because the products were so low and they didn’t want to work anymore. And the film was about the stocks which went up and down. So, the title is Where the Money Grows.

The third film I made was about the crisis in Argentina. The year was 2001. I made the film in 2002, when the banking system collapsed. It was about an Argentinian company crisis. When the Argentinian crisis was there and nobody could get money from the banks anymore. The entrepreneur of this company couldn’t pay to his workers anymore, so the women workers decided to take over the factory. It was not clear who was right, because the bank system had collapsed. The owner of the factory was also right. The battle rose between the women and the owner of the factory. After that I stopped making films about economy.

Were they all shown on TV?

Yes, they were all shown on TV and in festivals. All are 60 and 90 minute documentaries. Then I made a film about war games. It was about the young guys in Germany playing computer games, shooting games. I tried to find out why they were hooked to these games. I made some other films as well.

Again congratulations… these are all interesting subjects and that means us. You have a political and critical view to look at the problems of our reality. And suddenly you made a very personal documentary. How did you decide to make this documentary? You are turning the camera to yourself. You face with your origin but also I found the reality of my country.

Normally I am not a part of my films and this one is extreme. My mother wanted me to know about her. So, she mailed me what she was writing about herself and her past years. She wrote almost 50 pages about her life. She sent it to me as a son.

Weren’t you curious about her life?

I was curious but I had a problematic relationship with my mother. My mother has always had very much bitterness in her heart. So, she went to a psycologist to get over with this problem but I didn’t want to go because I didn’t have any problems. It was OK for me. I grew up together with my mother very alone in happy and sad days. I didn’t have a very happy childhood because we were only the two of us. When she was sad I was not feeling like her. I was happier or at least I pretended to be happy. I felt alright. But when I read them I was shocked. She was purely open. She told everything and we couldn’t put everything in the film. She stayed alone. My grandmother didn’t support her and she got kicked out from the university. I was sorry about our society, but there are so many things to laugh in these writings as well. So, I thought that I had to make a documentary or even maybe a fiction film about the sixties in Germany.

My mother was an intellectual woman who studied History and German. My father came from a little town in Turkey. He was just the opposite of her. She was somehow political and my father actually wasn’t political. But they were singing poltical songs together and this wasn’t in the movie. This was the begining and it was very clear that I wanted to visit my father. I wanted to visit him before, two years before. We were planing but then suddenly the film came and I had to start the film that summer. So if I had gone there I would have carried a camera with me. There was one incident one year before as well. A producer from Turkey called me. My father was in a TV programme which searched for people. She called me and invited me to the programme. All of these happened at the same time; my mother’s diary, this incident, etc. She called me several times. I didn’t accept, I said “if I go, I go alone.” Then, I decided to take a camera and go there. I didn’t want to make it for TV, actually. But my TV channel (SWR) was very much interested.

First I wrote a letter to my father but couldn’t get an answer. My letter didn’t get to him. So, I waited for two months and asked my mother and she said he was still alive. She was sure because they were in contact through letters. I found his telephone number with the help of a Turkish man. And I called him. I told him that I wanted to visit him and bring a camera with me. I didn’t say I was a filmmaker. He said that I could come with whoever I wanted and that I could bring whatever I want, that his life is like a film. He was very open and had a very nice voice. There was humor in his voice. And it is very important for the film. I was thinking always as a filmmaker and as a son.

There is one thing which we didn’t say in the film not because we didn’t want to say, but because it didn’t fit the film. My father’s name is Satılmış Çubuk, not Cahit Çubuk. So, this was actually a problem for my mother. When they met he said that he was Cahit Çubuk. One month later, she found his passport; it had the name Satılmış Çubuk. My mother thought he was a liar and she treated him all the time like that. When I went to meet with him, one of the most interesting things for me was that nobody called him Satılmış Çubuk. Everbody calls him Cahit Çubuk. The meaning of Satılmış is sold and he doesn’t want to be sold. He hates his name and everyone in the town calls him Cahit. It was the first problem in their relationship. It was a misunderstanding and he couldn’t make her believe he was not a liar. Until today my mother has thought he was a liar because he wanted to hide the fact that he was married. The funny thing is that he was in Germany and he played lotto as usual and he got six in the lotto, which means 500 000 Marks. The problem is he wrote Cahit Çubuk on the lotto. He went to take his Money with his passport but he couldn’t get the money because of the name. When he came the second time to Germany when I was seven he played again. It is like a joke but it is true. At this time he got 10 000 marks but this time too he wrote Cahit Çubuk.

He insists to be Cahit Çubuk.

Yes, he is insisting. This is one of the biggest problems to my mother. My mother is very German, she is so strict and if he says something which is not really true she does not trust this relationship anymore.

It is the most important film I have done and will always be the most important film. I mean, there are lots of important films which will come out and that I want to make. But I can watch this film again and again in every film festival.

You were sitting in front of us in the festival. I was happy to see you with your family. You were the main part of the film. You said that at the end of the film” we dont know our languages but this film is the best way for communication”

Exactly. I went there without any knowlege about the family. I just went.

And what a beautiful village…

Yes, and the house. When I saw the house I couldn’t believe and I felt as if I was in a fairytale. Boys were going to the “yalak” to swim. It was funny to see them swim in it. But the only thing in this village that makes me unhappy is that there were no women on the streets.

You mean the village was conservative.

Yes, yes.

But isn’t your father?

No, he is not.

Especially the conversation between you and your father after praying in the mosque.

When you see the girls they are looking out through the window. They were very nice. Everybody was looking out through the window.

The village is maybe conservative but this doesn’t explain the situation. They are in the village and they are working.

But the boys are not. This was somehow the first thing I observed there.

But you are right. Life of the men is separated in the central Anatolia.

The funny thing is that I have just finished a film about Palestine; Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I was in the refugee camp in Cenine. The women they are in the daily life. Maybe they cover their hair. If you think the situation in Palestine.

But your sister was different because they live in the city.

That’s because of my father. He is different. He is exceptional even in his village. I don’t know what would happen if I met a man/father who is conservative. I don’t know if I could make this film. I was saving money actually to pay the cameraman immediately in order to stop the film. This was a plan. I just wanted to stop the film after three days because I couldn’t make a film about a man who didn’t have sympathy. In the first three days I thought I was not going to like him. When I went to the hotel for the first time, I was at the point of stopping the film. It was the dramatic point of the whole journey when I was in the hotel. But the next day was different. It was a new day. I went again to the village. I saw everything differently. It was Friday and my father wanted to take me to the mosque along with him. Camera team asked me: “Do you want to do this really?” I said, “No problem.”

Every interview we did was a one time chance. If the camera wouldn’t have been work in interview would be the same. Because the feeling was different on each day. We went on a holiday trip to the Black Sea. I wanted to make the last iterview with my father at the seaside. Because he didn’t answer my question and I asked him again what I had been asking from the very begining. Two things are actually very interesting to me. The first thing is “can a woman and a man marry each other without knowing each other?” I heard someone in Turkey saying that love comes later and grows. For me, always love comes first and then you can decide on being together. I actually see the love between my father and his wife. Very much. They walk together because they need each other. I think it is something like love. The second one is a very simple and very easy question, because it is so symbolic. He had four sisters. I always asked my father why sons are so important for Turkish men, especially for him. He always avoided answering this question. He went around. But at the seaside I asked this question again. Out of the seen I sometimes asked this question while we were cooking, sitting together, etc. But at the seaside I asked the question in real interview situation. He couldn’t find a chance to escape, he had to be serious. And we did this interview in Turkish. Because in all the other interviews I was asking in German; in German he could escape. I interviewed him as a journalist in this interview and he had a totally different face. I asked why he had always waited for his son. He said this was my opinion, that his opinion was different. This was the first time he was being opponent. He didn’t want a reunion, he separated. He said, “You are here and I am here.” This was a moment when I felt very sad. Because suddenly he thought I was interviewing him as a journalist but not as a son anymore. He was more serious at this moment. He tried to explain at least behind of this because of the name. Because he wants his name to survive. And then he explained another thing. Suddenly he said in our village everyone was at work. No fathers were there, all were abroad. One in Istanbul, one in Saudi Arabia, one in Germany. “We didn’t see our children. As a father, it is hard not to see their children.” Then he cried for the first time and one tear was rolling down. I felt for the first time that he really loved his children. In 70s, there were almost no men in this village. That was a time form me yes you are right actually. How can I look at all this from my point of view? For sure you have to take into consideration that all the things are different. I thought I went too far in my question, I thought I was too much of a journalist and less of a son. There is a situation afterwards which we didn’t film. That was one of the saddest situations because everyone was crying. It was interviewing very early in the morning, at 6 o’clock. Then it was 8 o’clock and my father felt very bad and went back to tell everyone in the family about it. Everyone thought I came just for the film. I just wanted to tell him that it was a journalistic trick to force him to answer me. I didn’t want him to feel like having lost his son, even for one second.

Markus there was a big incorrect translation after the screening yesterday. You said that you talked to him as a son not as a filmmaker. But the translator translated it incorrectly. She said that you talked to him as a filmmaker. We understood you but the family, I am afraid they misunderstood. Your family, whole life, they were waiting for you and they were very open to you.

Exactly. This was also the moment when I first interviewed Nurşen, my second sister. She came two days later.

She was very sensitive.

Yes, she is. She is really great. She was very silent. While we were sitting at the balcony she was in silence. It was 4 o’clock in the evening and there was a beautiful sun light. I wanted to make an interview with her now. I asked her if it would be possible to speak with her in the garden, because she couldn’t speak at the balcony. So, we went down and she went to the rest room in order to look pretty. Afterwards we sat at the garden and the translator was beside me. I asked Nurşen how it was the whole time. “How did you feel when you were a little girl?” She said that she has a little photo of me. I asked “what kind of photo?” She said “you are playing with wooden things in the photo.” I said “yes, I know this photo. Where did you get it?” It was around there and passing from one sister to another. She was talking to this photo. I was totally lost. Because when I was young I knew that I had sisters but I didn’t have this feeling at that time because our society is different. I mean, at least I can talk like this personally.

Were you angry?

No, I wasn’t. The thing is I can’t love someone because she is just my sister. We don’t have this kind of family relationship. We have to love. She was talking with me in her imagination but I was totally at a different side of the world. I really got involved in my sister’s life. After this moment we had no limits any more, no barriers between us.

You have 4 sisters, right?

Yes. One of my sisters, Nurten, wasn’t in the movie. She lives in Diyarbakır. Her husband is an officer there. The other sister of mine, Nurhan, lives in Ankara but she was very sick, she had cancer at that time. Her husband died because of cancer at that time. So, she couldn’t come. Today she is fine but her daughter came. Also, Nurten was not interested at that time because she is the youngest. For her, brother was not so important, today it is more so. My father told me Nurhan’s wish to see me. She always asked: “When does Atilla come?”

Markus, do you know that we also have feature films made in the seventies on this subject in Turkish cinema? Divided families, especially from the sight of those who stayed in villages of these immigrant workers, women are waiting for the husbands and they don’t know what is going on in Germany, whether their husbands have a second life. They all are waiting for them, they send some presents from Germany. Do you have feature films too?

Yes.

First time I see a movie about this subject from Germany. There is a new generation in Germany now. Turkish-German directors make documentaries, feature films. What do you think about this generation?

For example, Fatih Akın?

Yes, also Yüksel Yavuz…

I don’t know him.

“Mein Vater, Der Gastarbeiter”

Yes, I know that film. But I didn’t see the film.

Ayhan Salar, he also made a documentary about it. He lives in Hamburg.

I don’t know him.

In general, what do you think about this generation?

Actually, I don’t know so much about this generation. I am just entering this generation. Until sixteen I had a lot of Turkish friends. With one of my Turkish friends I went to Antalya, Turkey for six weeks. I wasn’t in Turkey with a family. We were in the same school in Germany and he had very very nice parents. We went on vacation. That time there was the football cup. So it was 1982. But it was a very horrible vacation for some reasons. This is one of the reasons why I didn’t visit my father; because I stopped having Turkish friends. It was a very bad experience in Turkey. After all these years I have just started to get involved in here.

What do you generally think about the documentaries in Germany? Feature films, fiction films, there are some depression problems in German cinema. But documentary is a new fresh area not only in Germany but also all around the world. It is like an opposite movement. What do you think about this?

Internationally, it is the best time for documentary right now. Because of the new technology, you have a chance to work with documentaries. But people haven’t realized yet. I mean the audience. They realize slowly. I am going to a lot of festivals and it is amazing to see what making a documentary is internationally. In Germany, there are a lot of documentaries, not all of them but most of them are succesful. Not all of the documentaries but some of them are shown at the cinemas at least and it will grow. But there are also great fiction films right now.

But we don’t see directors that follow the big directors in German cinema. Fasbinder, Wenders…After them, there have been no great directors in German cinema.

I actually want to say I loved the film Head-On. I also loved his latest film. It is even criticized but I really love it. I don’t know what your opinion is. Have you seen it?

We found the German part more realistic…

Exactly.

One of my friends in Germany thinks so. We had a long discussion about the movie. But there are so many bad films shown and they have nothing to tell. But this was a film which touched me.

What about the son of the old man that comes to İstanbul and works in the bookstore?

Yes, that was a little problematic. It is overly structured. But on the other hand you can say that the director was playing with it. He was just playing with all these subjects.

Anyway, I just wondered. In your documentary you are saying “I didn’t say my father is a Turkish man. I said he is French.” The title also shows something. You also show your change and family chages as well. I like the developments. The changes are developing in the movie and in the end all of you were different. In the end you give a present to your father, a motorcycle. What was the idea? Actually, I don’t want to seach or try to find ironic things in it. Generally fathers give presents to their sons, like a bike.

There were two reasons…

It was very funny and humanistic.

After that, I did the interview in Black Sea and I went too far. So I wanted to show him I loved him. This was the main idea. So, I was searching for something to express my love to him. Also, we always had problems hugging each other. I didn’t hug him and I called him Cahit but not father in the first three weeks. So, I thought of buying him a motorcycle and teaching him how to drive. This would be great idea for overcoming this reluctance to hug each other. My team told me not to do it, they said “it is very dangerous, you can’t.” But it was our chance. I know that it was a big responsibility because he was 72. I was very positive. I asked him and he said yes. When I taught him I asked him if he wanted to sit in the front. “There is no problem because I will hold you.” And then he suddenly wanted to drive alone. And he did the exact same thing I did as a child. I was riding a bicycle with one hand and saying hello to my mum with my other hand. He did the same thing when he was on the motorcycle.

It is genetic.

Yes, the funny thing is that I told him to put the motorbike in his house, not to touch it until I came again. My father is a free thinker. He took his motorbike and when I came the next time with my son and my wife, my father came to the bus station by the motorbike. Also, his village is far from Mengen so it was a second idea to buy him a motorbike. There is no bus for transportation. If he wants to go to Mengen he has to take the post bus and there is one post bus a day. Thanks to the motorbike he can be a bit mobile. Otherwise he is only sitting. But the main idea was to express my love. I asked him so many questions. Somehow I wanted to be more silent than criticize him. But somehow he is criticizing. He had to do all these though. In the movie it is important that the audiences see that I love him.

Yes, we understood it and they love you too. In the screening some audiences asked the name of his wife.

Mekhufe.

Yes but in the documentary we didn’t hear her name. Audiences reacted to it.

Yes.

Audiences reacted to two things when the film was screened in the festival. In the Arabic song part, they were very sensitive. “We are not an Arabic country,” they say. And the other one was that we didn’t hear her name. At the end of the movie, in the lobby, everybody was saying congratulations to your father and your father was a star. But Mekhufe Hanım was alone and we wanted to say something to her. She hugged us and said “thanks for coming.” Like we were the guest and she was the host. She was so sympathetic.

This is great. She is great. Also how she is conversing with her husband… There is a lot of humor, if she has a chance to speak. In one interview she said everything in a very direct way. I think she is a very very strong woman.

And their conversations are very funny. They needle each other. Your idea to shoot 8 mm turns us to the past.

I want to say something. If I am making films I never see other related films before. The theory of filmmaking is very interesting. If I see other films or filmmakers… knowing a lot of films and being involves in the film business is very important. You can learn so much about filmmaking and certain stages in society. Because filmmaking reflects the society. But my personal secret as a filmmaker is exactly the opposite of it and every film tries to do without knowing anything about what other pople did. If I see too many films related I have problems making the film. There are very good films and they were all done. I can’t compete with that. So, it is important for me to be almost naive while going into the story or into the film.

You can make another film “my life is a film” like your father says in the film…

(He is laughing)

Yeni Film/ Issue 16/ 2008