Oil Wrestlers in Tekirdag

In the summer of 2011, I met a very interesting young photographer from Åland Islands. His name was Kenneth Bamberg and he came to Turkey to document oil wrestlers for his next exhibition. Having heard his announcement, (he was looking for a production manager to help him organize the wrestlers all over Anatolia), I gave him a call and told him I would be glad to help. He told he was a recent graduate from the University of Art and Design, Helsinki which was a funny coincidence because I was also there to do my exchange studies the previous year.
While we were in Tekirdag, I thought I might also do some additional shootings to document the event. The result is here but for me the experience was far beyond that.
I miss you Kenneth!

Outline!

Hello! It has been quite sometime since I have written anything in this blog. As a matter of fact, I have been having difficulties with some of the work that I am trying to accomplish and I still do. I thought making a list of the stuff that I would like to accomplish would be a good way to motivate myself. Why not write about the things that I would like to do, I have to do and I already did.

Let’s start:

The things that I would like to do:
– Finding the right distribution channel for our short film “Evcilik” directed by Aytuğ Üngör and produced by me. (I have already made a list of film festivals in Turkey and we will start with Altın Portakal and the deadline is 12 of August. We will continue submitting our film to İzmir International Film Festival and Akbank Kısa Film Festival subsequently. Our aim is also to participate to film festivals abroad but I have not made a list about them yet. I am not sure if we will be able to get in first rate film festivals such as Cannes or Venice but we may have some good opportunities in festivals elsewhere! And by elsewhere, it is my job as the producer to find out the right festivals. My encounter with a photographer friend from Åland, Kenneth Bamberg may actually give us the opportunity to screen our film in that area.
– Develop the short film project I.N.D.I.A. This is a project that I have been willing to develop for a long time but the negative thoughts as well as insecurities because of not so much of lack of information, but from an exaggerated fear of making a mistake prevented me from doing so. And finding a way to integrate this project to my thesis -which is about staging methodologies- is also something that I have to think of.

The things that I have to do:

-Finish the last two videos for ISEA2011. We finished the shootings with Emre Birismen and now I have to finish the editing by Monday.
-Rewrite the introduction for the thesis.

The things that I did:

-I finished 16 videos for ISEA2011.
-We finished the shooting for my dear friend’s exhibition Kenneth Bamberg.

Now I have to go but I hope to expand this list later on!