Mavi Boncuk |
National Competition | Istanbul International Film Festival 2022
THE LAST BIRDS OF PASSAGE
TURNA MİSALİ
- Director: İffet Eren Danışman Boz
- TURKEY / 2021 / DCP / Colour / 99’ / Turkish; English s.t
- Screenplay: Eyüp Boz, İffet Eren Danışman Boz
Director of Photography: Eyüp Boz; Editing: Melik Saraçoğlu; Music: Coşkun Karademir; Art Director: Selim Alan; Cast: Sennur Nogaylar, Necmettin Çobanoğlu, Timur Ölkebaş, Zeynep Elçin, Sercan Can, Deniz Ceylan; Producer: Eyüp Boz, İffet Eren Danışman Boz; Production Co.: İEDB Film; World Sales: İEDB Film
- Gülsüm, the authoritarian matriarch of the Aksak Family that belongs to the Sarıkeçili Yörüks has started to prepare for summer migration. However, members of her family do not agree with her. Her husband claims that he is too old to migrate and wants to settle down, her son-in law wants to sell the camels and use the tractor to move. Gülsüm believes that migration should be realised with traditional methods using camels. A rumour spreads that the governor’s office will ban migration. Gülsüm is determined to migrate in spite of all the obstacles she faces.
Filmography
Writer | Producer | Director
Writer
2021The Last Birds of
Passage
2013 Galip Dervis (TV
Series) (1 episode)
Dervis ve Kirazli Turta (2013)
Producer
1998 X Kusagi (Short) (assistant producer)FILMOGRAPHY
FILMOGRAPHY | Writer | Producer | Director
Writer
2021The Last Birds of
Passage
2013 Galip Dervis (TV
Series) (1 episode)
Dervis ve Kirazli Turta (2013)
Producer
1998 X Kusagi (Short)
(assistant producer)
Director
2021The Last Birds of
Passage
2000 Orhon Murat Ariburnu (Documentary short)
T.M. FRAGMAN 28.02.22.mp4 from Eren Danışman on Vimeo.
This is Anatolia, where the descendants of the nomadic Turks that arrived some 1000 years ago still roam the Taurus mountains, and where, down towards sea level there are temples dedicated to Apollo and Zeus.
The Last Birds of Passage is a narrative feature film by first-time director İffet Eren Danışman Boz who welcomed the viewers to the screening by saying "Please do not be too harsh on the film!" This film about the last few remaining nomads in Anatolia is clearly a labour of love for her. The lives of the nomads have become a minor cause célèbre in recent years, with forestry departments banning their passage, and corresponding campaigns to let them roam freely. This feature film reprises the themes that have been taken up by previous documentaries on the subject, such as the major conflict which is between the nomads and forestry authorities who believe that the nomads’ livestock damage the new saplings in the forest. And then there is the conflict between the old and the new generations of nomads, the old one here being represented by the matriarch who wants to take the animals to their next place of camp on foot, while the son wishes to use a tractor. We also get to see what happens to nomads that take up the municipality’s offer to live settled lives.
While most of the film confirms our worries about what may be happening to this endangered life style, there are also moments of self-reflection on the part of the director. What does it mean for urbanites to romanticize a lifestyle they only have a fleeting understanding of? There is a scene in which the children of neighbouring tents get together in a communal tent to watch the popular series Resurrection, about the first nomadic Turks that came to Anatolia. It is an ironic scene indeed -- a lifestyle that is presented on national TV as one we should return to so as to be a powerful nation again, now being harassed by government officials. It also reveals the pitfalls of romanticism for films like her own The Last Birds of Passage. The nomads of today are not the valiant founders of a new empire like in Resurrection, nor are they gurus of ‘natural living’ like some characters in the film want to make them out to be. They are our contemporaries with contemporary needs, and we need to find a way to look at them in their own light.
In The Last Birds of Passage now and then the camera shows us teasing views of the Mediterranean as seen from these mountains where the nomads are trying to make a living. The sea grounds the viewer, as we remember the story is taking place up in the mountains from where we hope to spend our holidays.
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