23/10/2025 - Meeting with the Ukrainian producer based in Turkey, who discusses Kaan Mujdeci's new project, which she is spearheading with her company TatoFilm

(© Fabien Lemercier)

Founder and Director of TatoFilm since 2011, Ukrainian producer (based in Turkey) Olena Yershova's credits include Levan Koguashvili's Brighton 4th [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Levan Koguashvili
film profile], Senem Tüzen's Motherland [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] and Emre Kayis' Anatolian Leopard [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]. She is attending the 47th Montpellier Film Festival, where she is pitching Turkish director Kaan Mujdeci's (long-time resident of Berlin) project Dream Girl at the Cinemed Meetings Development Fund (read the report).

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Cineuropa: What attracted you to the Dream Girl project?
Olena Yershova: First and foremost, the director, because everything always starts with faith in a filmmaker. Kaan Mujdeci's first feature film, Sivas [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], which won the Special Jury Prize at Venice in 2014, was very powerful, and the international career of his second feature, Iguana Tokyo, which in my opinion was just as good, was hampered because it was during the Covid pandemic. He also wrote and directed the series Hamlet, which was in competition at Séries Mania in 2021. But I also obviously love the story of Dream Girl, which centres on a young Roma girl who wants to escape, with one of her friends, a slightly dim-witted butcher living under the influence of drugs, from a small town in Eastern Anatolia where they are not welcome. On their way to Istanbul, these two lost souls meet a third: the driver of a lorry transporting three horses, two of which are dying while one still resists this fate. It is a story about freedom, about finding one's place in the world, about healing a horse to heal oneself, about our relationship with nature, about minorities.

How is the project coming along?
We now have a third draft of the script, written by Kaan Mujdeci with Ercan Kesal (Once Upon a Time in Anatolia [+see also:
trailer
film profile], Three Monkeys [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Zeynep Ozbatur
film profile]), which is a good combination because Ercan has a more classical approach and Kaan a more visual one. A script doctor was also involved in the process. Kaan intends to work with Hungarian director of photography Máté Herbai (On Body and Soul [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ildiko Enyedi
interview: Ildiko Enyedi
interview: Réka Tenki
film profile]), who was involved in his last two projects, and with Greek editor Yorgos Mavropsaridis (Yorgos Lanthimos' loyal collaborator), who worked on his first two feature films. This is why the Greek company Graal is co-producing the film. And as Kaan lives in Germany, Berlin-based Watchmen Productions (in competition at Berlin last year with My Favourite Cake [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]) has also come on board as a co-producer. Finally, I have another Turkish co-production partner, Asteros Film (led by Kanat Dogramaci, who has also just opened a company in the United Kingdom). We are also open to a French co-production because, even though we already have the support of the Turkish Ministry of Culture, it is far from enough for a budget of €1.5 million, so we need to increase the number of partners. If all goes well, filming should take place at the end of 2026, ideally entirely in Turkey, but with the possibility of shooting interiors elsewhere depending on financing requirements.

What are your other projects?
Guria by Levan Koguashvili, which I am producing with Kino Iberica (Georgia) and which brings together Cineworx (Switzerland), Tarantula (Luxembourg) and ArtFest (Bulgaria), is in post-production. I also have a documentary project about four Ukrainian teenagers who were taken to Russia and managed to escape. Finally, I have a series project, Escape from Harem, which will be a co-production between Turkey and France, and which has been selected for the ACE Series Special 7, taking place in early November in Rome.

(Translated from French)