Turkish filmmaker Gürcan Keltek joins us to present two short films never before screened in the UK.
Overtime [Fazlamesai] as brief but intimate glimpses into the lives of marginalised young Muslim workers in Istanbul. Images of labourers appear amidst the film’s black and white grain, telling us about their lives, struggles and hopes. Fazlamesai explores how memory and identity are shaped by specific geographical environments in restless images that are, like its characters, continually on the move.
Blending documentary and experimental fiction, Gulyabani tells the harrowing story of Fethiye Sessiz, a famous clairvoyant from İzmir, Turkey. 'Gulyabani means the spirit of dark and desolate places. A ghoul that appears before us in recesses. Female jinn of the myths', she explains. Through her diary entries and letters to her estranged son, the film relays her survival from abuse, kidnapping and torture. Blending documentary and fiction, Sessiz's memories are interspersed with short texts from Terry Eagleton and W.G. Sebald. The film's ominous imagery draws in richly coloured shots of the Turkish landscape and found Super 8 footage, eventually giving way to an unforgettable final sequence of increasingly abstract monochromatic images.
Programme
Introduction by the artist
Overtime [Fazlamesai], Turkey 2012, DCP, black and white, sound, 20 min, Turkish and Kurdish with English subtitles
Gulyabani, Turkey 2018, DCP, colour and black and white, sound, 34 min, Turkish with English subtitles
Discussion and Q&A with the artist and Tate Film curators
Biography
Gürcan Keltek
Gürcan Keltek (b.1973, Turkey) is a filmmaker whose work explores the meeting point of documentary and experimental fiction in telling stories of conflict, struggle and marginalisation in Turkish history. His first feature film Meteors [Meteorlar] was awarded the Swatch Art Peace Hotel First Feature Film Award and Cinelab Award at the 2017 Locarno Internal Film Festival where it had its world premiere.