Alfonso Cuaron’s black-and-white Mexican drama Roma has scooped the Golden Lion at the 75th Venice Film Festival. This is the first movie from Netflix to take such an honor at a major festival, and the second movie in a row from a Mexican filmmaker to win here. Last year, Guillermo del Toro’s Golden Lion winner, The Shape Of Water, went all the way to a Best Picture Oscar.Turlish moment of pride comes with Mahmut Fazil Coskun film "The Announcement"
in the Orrizonti/Horizons Competition
Mavi Boncuk |
HORIZONS
Best Film:Manta Ray, dir: Phuttiphong Aroonpheng
Best Director: Ozen (The River), dir: Emir Baigazin
Special Jury Prize Anons (The Announcement), dir: Mahmut Fazil Coskun[1]
See INTERVIEW | See TRAILER
In official press materials, director Mahmut Fazıl Coşkun explained that the film “is a story of a clash and a unity of two different parts; soldiers and civilians, who read and understand the world and the life from two different perspectives. …When I came up with an idea of a film out of this story, I thought I will not be able to find a better story that I can express all these oddness and contradictions which are hard to understand at first glance. I have never had an intention to be a side or to judge what’s been going on.” The film is based on actual events, though Coşkun also explained, “I am not a historian. Even though the story of the film is familiar with some other real life stories, I wanted to write my own story and tried to see how I can see the past independently of official or unofficial history. My aim in the story is to express the absolute power of the streets and the life following the process of the announcement of a coup without being a supporter or an opponent of it.”
THE ANNOUNCEMENT
by Mahmut Fazil Coskun
synopsis May 22nd, 1963. Unhappy with the existing social and political situation in Turkey, a group of military officers has planned a coup d’état to take down the government in Ankara. Meanwhile in Istanbul, their co-conspirators have undertaken the vital mission of taking over the National Radio station and making a formal announcement about the coup. But nothing goes to plan. Faced with a number of obstacles, including a sudden rainstorm, the absence of the radio station technician, a betrayal, the lack of feedback from Ankara and their own inefficiency, the conspirators scramble to keep their plan on track and announce the success of the coup – that is, if the coup in the capital has taken place at all. Based on actual events and told over the course of a single night, Anons is a wry commentary on Turkey’s uneasy political past – and present. Biting political satire meets subtle comedy in a film that highlights the absurdity of its story without ever being anything less than dead serious.
international title: The Announcement
original title: Anons
country: Turkey, Bulgaria
sales agent: Heretic Outreach
year: 2018
genre: fiction
directed by: Mahmut Fazil Coskun[1]
film run: 95'
screenplay: Mahmut Fazil Coskun, Ercan Kesal
cast: Ali Seckiner Alici, Tarhan Karagöz, Murat Kiliç, Sencan Güleryüz
cinematography by: Krum Rodrigues
film editing: Cicek Kahraman
art director: László Rajk
costumes designer: Zehra Tuba Atac
music: Okan Kaya
producer: Halil Kardas, Tarik Tufan, Borislav Chouchkov
production: Filmotto Production, BKM, Chouchkov Brothers
VENICE 2018 Orizzonti
Review: The Announcement by Kaleem Aftab
03/09/2018 - VENICE 2018: Turkish director Mahmut Fazıl Coşkun presents a blistering deadpan comedy about a failed military coup attempt in Turkey
Review: The Announcement
With his third film, playing in the Orizzonti competition at the Venice Film Festival, Turkish director Mahmut Fazıl Coşkun announces himself as a major film talent. Such is the strength of The Announcement that there will inevitably be comparisons with deadpan comedy masters, such as Roy Andersson, Aki Kaurismäki and the Coen brothers. Coşkun deserves to be in their company.
It is the small obstacles that become the big barriers for a group of army officers who plan on reading out a statement at an Istanbul radio station that a military coup is taking place in Ankara. This is an unhurried comedy film that reveals itself slowly. The movie starts off with a medical examination, which only makes sense later on in the picture. Throughout the film, Coşkun shows that he understands the increasingly little-practised art of the slow burn before landing an unexpected payoff where pathos and comedy are bedfellows.
We then jump into the main story proper, as a taxi driver (Mehmet Yilmaz Ak) picks up two men, Reha (Ali Seckiner Alici) and Sinasi (Tarhan Karagoz), whose glances suggest something is amiss. As they meet with other friends Kemal (Murat Kilic), Nazif (Nazmi Kirik) and Rifat (Sencan Guleryuz), it becomes clear that they are taking part in a coup attempt. The director has taken the real-life event of a failed coup on 22 May 1963 and imagined a group of men whose ability to execute the plan is as half-baked as The Ladykillers’ attempt to rob Mrs Wilberforce’s house in Kings Cross.
There is so much to praise about the film, from the impressive production design by László Rajk – who has also done some immaculate period work on László Nemes’ Venice competition entry Sunset [+] – which gives the film a heightened noir quality, to the framing by cameraman Krum Rodriguez that peers through the doors of bread carts and is backed up by the use of third space. In addition, Rifat’s ability to sing the North Korean national anthem provides one of a number of quirky moments that populate the film, infusing it with comedy.
While watching, it’s almost inevitable that we will be looking for clues as to whether this story is actually a treatise on the failed attempt by the military to topple the current Erdogan administration in Turkey. But this wonderful comedy is sufficiently ambiguous to allow for many interpretations, and the important point is that this Turkish-Bulgarian production always remains entertaining.
[1] Turkish director Mahmut Fazıl Coşkun made his first fiction film, Wrong Rosary, in 2009, for which he won several national and international awards, including International Film Festival Rotterdam’s Tiger Award and the İstanbul Film Festival’s Best Director Award. His second film, Yozgat Blues, was finished in 2013 and premiered at the San Sebastián Film Festival. His new effort, The Announcement competed in the Orizzonti section of the 2018 Venice Film Festival.
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