Rising Turkish filmmaker Belkis Bayrak is prepping her sophomore function, “A Brighter Word Than Bright,” which she’s presenting this week within the Transilvania Pitch Cease co-production discussion board of the Transilvania Intl. Movie Pageant. The director’s debut function, “Gülizar,” world premiered in Toronto’s Discovery strand and performed San Sebastian’s New Administrators Competitors.
A portrait of grief and resilience, “A Brighter Word Than Bright” follows a younger literature trainer who, in an effort to guard the dignity of a grieving girl, serves 5 years in jail for a demise he didn’t trigger — solely to seek out upon his launch that the official fact has erased his sacrifice. Written by Bayrak, the movie is produced by Saba Movie (Turkey), Arizona Movies (France) and Plan Bee Movies (Kosovo).
The movie begins in a Turkish army barrack, the place Osman, a delicate younger conscript, kinds a quiet however highly effective bond together with his superior, Ziya. Within the inflexible and masculine world of the military, they discover sanctuary in poetry and late-night talks — a secure haven that’s abruptly shattered when Ziya takes his personal life.
Conscious of the taboo round suicide in Turkish society, Osman decides to take the blame for Ziya’s demise to spare his pregnant fiancée the disgrace, isolation and harsh public censure she would in any other case face. To guard her and the way forward for her unborn little one, Osman makes a silent and heavy sacrifice: he insists that he instigated the suicide and spends 5 years in jail. The movie picks up the thread of their story after his launch, when the duo reconnects, and Osman tentatively begins to rebuild his life via a love for literature and educating.
Chatting with Selection in Transilvania, Bayrak described “A Brighter Word Than Bright” as a movie “about two men whose presence — and absence — have marked my life.” It attracts on a tragic episode within the director’s previous, when her uncle, who served alongside her father within the Turkish Armed Forces, died by suicide — a tragedy that her household has by no means totally come to phrases with.
Years later, Bayrak mentioned she was the primary amongst them to overtly discuss in regards to the tragic demise, breaking the silence “that still reverberates through my family.” She sees the movie not solely as a “gesture of remembrance” for her uncle, however an act of empathy in the direction of the spouse, kids and different family members he left behind, insisting: “Filmmaking is a way of resilience for all of us.”
Taking its title from a poem by John Keats, “A Brighter Word Than Bright” was partly impressed by Jane Campion’s “Bright Star,” a biographical romantic drama based mostly on the final three years of the lifetime of the Nineteenth-century poet. Bayrak remembers being touched by Campion’s evocation of the well-known romantic poet, a “fragile” soul by which she says she noticed glimpses of her father, a person who — very like the lead character, Osman — “managed to overcome life’s challenges with a gentle and restrained nature.”
So as to form the world of the movie, which is about within the Nineteen Nineties, Bayrak delved into her household archive for inspiration, unearthing previous images and letters to recreate the temper of the time. She mentioned she encountered many “beautiful moments” on this “nostalgic journey,” however may “always feel the loss” of her uncle lingering outdoors the body of every photograph and past the margins of each web page.
Bayrak describes her uncle as a person who struggled together with his explosive mood, and it’s partially the query of masculinity that she hopes to discover, providing “a different representation of male characters” on display.
“I believe that, today, the definition of ‘male’ and ‘masculinity’ is very problematic. That is a burden for everyone,” she mentioned. “The definition of what’s masculinity is altering. It’s extra inflexible. There may be much less place for notion, understanding, empathy.
“We’ve seen countless films set in military or war environments that glorify heroism and masculinity. But I have always been drawn to those who stand quietly at the margins whose fragility is not weakness but endurance,” she continued. “Osman is such a character. His story is about the long emotional aftermath of sacrifice, the impossibility of returning to who you once were, and the hesitant rediscovery of tenderness through teaching and art.”
The Transilvania Intl. Movie Pageant runs June 12 – 21.
