27/11/2024 - The Turkish director and his French producer talk about their project of a social realistic thriller which won the Eurimages Award at the 17th TFL Meeting Event

The debut feature by Turkish director Serhat Karaaslan, Passed by Censor [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Serhat Karaaslan
film profile], premiered at the 2019 Karlovy Vary Film Festival, where it won the Critics' Award. His latest work, the short film The Criminals, had its world premiere at Sundance in 2021 and won the Special Jury Award. It was then selected for more than 160 festivals, won over 50 awards and was shortlisted at the 2022 Oscars. His new feature-film project, which is based on that short film (and with the same title) and took part in the 2024 TorinoFilmLab's ScriptLab programme, was awarded the Eurimages Co-Production Development Award at the 17th TFL Meeting Event. In Turin, we talked with the director and the French producer of the film, Laure Dahout from Tiresias Films, about this story of two young Turkish lovers seeking privacy on a getaway weekend who get stranded in a hotel for not being married.

Cineuropa: The short film The Criminals was a great success. Is that what made you think of making a feature film out of it?
Serhat Karaaslan: When I was writing the short script, I already saw the potential of it. I started to think that actually it could be a feature. But I didn't want to go directly for it, it would have taken a long time, and I wanted to make it fast. Also, I wanted to try something in a genre, mixing things up, and I felt freer in the short format. After that, we decided to make the feature. 

What do you think is the international potential of this story?
SK: Well, as they always say: the more local, the more universal. It's about relationships, emotions. It's not only about Turkey, where if you're not married, you cannot stay together in a hotel. But even this, it makes it international, because it's like that in many countries. After the short film came out, we got a lot of interesting messages from India and Egypt, for example. 

Laure Dahout: We also got lots of success in the US, because it's really at the border between an auteur film and an audience film. Everybody was very immersed in the story, and really engaged. It's the audience experience that we thought about from the beginning, finding the right balance of social realism and tension. 

What will the tone of the film be? How did you explain it at the one-to-one meetings here in Turin?
SK: The people that already knew the short were very excited, and there was no question about what the tone is going to be: they were very convinced already. Instead, people who hadn't seen the short were really curious about the tone. Because when you say social realistic film, cinéma vérité, it's clear. But when you say that it will have the genre element, it's a bit harder, because there aren't many examples to give as a reference. It's a social realistic road movie with thriller elements. We are trying to develop it in this way. Everybody was finding it quite interesting, exciting, and very fresh.

LD: Also, in the feature version, we're going to see a love story developing. They're really at the beginning of their romance, it's blossoming. And then it gets a bit tougher throughout the journey, because they have so much hostility coming at them, so they actually learn to know each other.

Can we consider it a political film as well?
SK: It's about youth, about desire, about loving each other, but not only about that, because in the background, there's a society judging, punishing and discriminating this couple for being together without their permission, meaning for making love without being married. It's about today's Turkey, but at the same time, it is about love and desire, and people can identify with that easily. 

LD: Another element that is very important to me is that in the feature project, in this young couple, the male character discovers that he has internalised toxic masculinity. He realises this throughout the journey, because he sometimes has an alpha male behaviour, as there's a third character in the feature version that is a bit flirtatious with his girlfriend, and he has reactions that aren't so great. 

Do you already have the actors?
SK: I want to make a new cast, because the two actors in the short are great, but they’ve grown up, they are almost 28 now. And, most importantly, I don't want to make the same thing again. I'm keeping the core of the short, but there are a lot of other things I want to develop.

How can the Eurimages Award help you? What's the next step?
SK: The next step is developing the script. We've already worked here in TFL, for about eight months, and it was a great experience. I have written five versions of the treatment, and I would like to work with a co-writer. Until now, we couldn't because we didn't have any financing. I would like another point of view, because it's a personal story, and we are looking for it in France. Our plan is to have a solid script and shoot by the end of 2026. We will shoot in Anatolia.

LD: I think the prize is really valuable, because it gives you the possibility to really focus on the writing and feel a bit more at ease and comfortable, because it's very motivating. It's really going to be put into the writing and in this collaboration, to really make the most beautiful script, because it all unfolds from there.