01/08/2024 - The fiction feature by Turkish filmmaker Gürcan Keltek chronicles episodes of psychosis in chapters over 72 hours

"It’s been years since Akın has been in and out of the hospital – relentless, angry, and shellshocked from being stuck in the system. Since his discharge, he’s well aware that his old life is long gone. He has become unable to leave his family house except for occasional visits to religious monuments in Istanbul – visits during which he falls into a state of ecstasy as he tries to take refuge in God… As he loses touch with his true self, his mind shifts into another reality.” So goes the synopsis of Gürcan Keltek's debut fiction film New Dawn Fades [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Gürcan Keltek
film profile], set to premiere in the International Competition of the Locarno Film Festival (7-17 August). 

“I made New Dawn Fades because I believe insanity is just another social construct”, explains Keltek. On the one hand, the film is based on the experiences of a real person that Keltek tried to make a documentary about, but he soon abandoned that project as it felt too intimate. But it is also inspired by research on a group of doctors and physicians who started an occult/spiritualist movement in the late 1940s in Turkey. As a result, New Dawn Fades portrays the last couple of days of the protagonist before everything falls apart. “His mind clings to random thoughts and the narrative in his mind barely holds together. Reality and imagination co-exist in the film, often in the most simple and banal ways. The geographic locations of Istanbul reflect the character's emotional landscape. The camera moves with the character, while the audience follows just behind, witnessing his fragmented future”, Keltek further elaborates. 

The filmmaker has already explored psychogeography, the memory of landscape, trauma and remembrance in his mid-length documentary Colony, selected for the 2015 FIDMarseille International Film Festival, and gained recognition with the mystery documentary Meteors [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Gürcan Keltek
film profile], which premiered in the Cineasti del presente competition at the Locarno Film Festival and later won several awards, among which the Special Jury Award at the 2018 Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival, and the Best Documentary Debut Award at the 2019 Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival.

New Dawn Fades was produced by Turkey’s Vigo Film and co-produced by Italy’s Slingshot Films, the Netherlands’ 29P Films, Germany’s The StoryBay, and Norway’s Fidalgo Film Production. International sales are handled by Heretic.

Check out the exclusive teaser below: