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Venturing Film Student A Grad Students Journey to the wild life and through misty mountains to make a documentary...

How it all started...

TURKEY | Monday, 19 July 2010 | Views [624]

I am currently doing my masters in the area of media and visual studies. I have shot several short films during my undergraduate years. The thrill of making a film is unbelievable. When I first felt that excitement I knew this really was the right thing for me to do in life. After a while though things began to go down. The projects became dull and the excitement turned into everyday practices. I gave up doing films in my last year and started to focus on the theoretical part of the matter. 

In 2008, a new project came up. There was a festival where participants would shoot documentaries in just a few days, in the remote towns of Turkey. I accepted the offer and went along with two of my friends to Kars, which is one of the eastern parts of Turkey. We met lots of kind people who offered to help us shoot our documentary. All went well and we shot 4 short documentaries in just 7 days. The thrill was running in my veins once again!


Than of course we came back to our school, continued the classes and forgot about it all. The days passed by and we graduated. The school life was over for most of my friends but not for me. I continued to study and was eager to expand my knowledge. Although I still doubt that people noticed the enthusiasm in me or so my capacity to learn, I was very determined to continue in this road without letting go of film making.  Funny combination for most people... Well, its not for me anyways.

To be perfectly honest, I always wanted to be an academician. I love to read, think and write and I am still planning to pursue a career in this area. But than I also enjoy the nature and to produce out of it a story that no one ever knew. Show the world that some people have to struggle for what little they have in their lives. My intention is not to tell lies or create fantasies. I simply try to observe and show, eliminating biases as much as I can.

Of course, all of this sounds quite naive. I do my best to prove that wrong in the documentaries I make. The judgment of its success, I leave to the audience.


Most of the people, never cared to look behind what they saw. A young and stupid girl who learned a few things, and nothing more. I did not have an education with a background to produce complex theories (I mean I graduated from the department of communication and design and now am constructing theories on philosophical matters without being an actual philosophy graduate! gosh! That's a sin!). Even when I did some theoretical thinking they were open to questioning harshly. Well, to hell with it! I like to do it and so I am doing it no matter how they look at me...

Than with all this struggle and painful days of questioning myself and my choice for life, there came up the same festival! This time, in 2009 October, it would be held in another city: Artvin. That's where it all started to go so funny and enjoyable with a high productivity level that I simply have to write this!

Tags: artvin, beginning, documentary, film, film making, intention, kars, story, student, turkey

 

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