Following the story of a young bride-to-be who is sexually assaulted while on a bus journey and the aftermath of this deep trauma, Gülizar [+lee también:
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entrevista: Belkıs Bayrak y Bekir Behrem
ficha de la película] screened in the New Directors section at the San Sebastián International Film Festival after having premiered in Toronto's Discovery strand. Cineuropa sat down with director Belkıs Bayrak as well as actor Bekir Behrem to talk about the project.

Cineuropa: Women in particular are bound to be struck by this story. Were there any accounts, whether personal or secondhand, that you drew from to explore this very emotionally intimate story?
Belkıs Bayrak: It’s an unconscious process. First, you don’t realise why you’re so interested, and then, during the writing or the shooting, you start to remember. During my high school and university years, I travelled a lot because I lived abroad, and I used the bus to travel. I know the feeling of being alone and travelling alone, the feeling of insecure locations. These were very common feelings for me — not the particular event [of assault] itself, but how a female character carries her emotions through all these journeys — travelling, marriage. 

Bekir, you play Emre, Gülizar's husband-to-be — he wants to take control of the situation for Gülizar. Emre shows a bit of entitlement but also a lot of love for Gülizar and clearly means well. Can you talk about this conflict and challenge within the character?
Bekir Behrem: Emre is more naïve — he wants to make things right. His way of thinking is good, but his actions don't always show that. I don't have a different way of thinking — Emre's opinion is my opinion. I just remember thinking, "What would I do in this situation?" But it was challenging for me in other ways, being in this project, as it's very big for me. It's currently the peak of my career, and there's a little burden with that — a different kind of struggle when preparing for the character. I’m on this big set, there’s a big role, there’s a strong story.

Bayrak: There are some exceptions of family and family roles. I didn’t want any dominating role, like a shadow father or shadow mother. Because what if everybody is in their place, and they have a trauma, but they can’t speak about it? It was a balance to keep in the film. If there was a very dominant male character, it would be something different. I was careful not to create a duality between these characters. We can understand but I don’t want to judge him, because he’s not a representation of this male, dominant character. He’s flexible, and my keyword is resilience. He's resilient. I wanted to end with hope, with both of them and a possibility of reunion in this relation.

Can you expand on how the character of Emre is different from other depictions of masculinity onscreen, perhaps within Turkish cinema?
Bayrak: It was tough casting Emre because I was expecting to receive something very masculine with a very patriarchal way of thinking. I asked all the actors to read all of the script and I asked them to send a tape of just one scene. The reactions in the auditions were that people were screaming at Gülizar, hitting the table. Only Bekir's audition was very gentle, and he was just asking, "Why?" Then, I felt very connected to his way of acting. I had some film references in mind for the way of acting and creating all this pressure, because they don’t have any place in the film for relief. We had so many rehearsals before shooting. It was a perfect decision, because we were totally on the same level. During shooting, it felt easy — not for the psychology of the film, but in the way of understanding each other.

I was really careful in portraying the Emre character, but I was not expecting that much of a positive reaction. People say, "We haven’t seen that much Turkish male representation in cinema that gives us hope, maybe it’s the young generation, maybe it was always there." And I say, "No, I think it was always there, but we didn’t see it onscreen."

After she is assaulted, Gülizar is struck by a particular affliction: claustrophobia. Why this psychological response?
Bayrak: I think this is an area that I should also deal with because I wrote these scenes in certain places, and then I started to question, "Oh my God, do I have claustrophobia?" I checked on Google, the locations where I work are usually places where claustrophobia is precipitated. You spend too much time at these locations, and you know the feeling. Whenever I go with a bus somewhere and it stops, I remember this feeling. We have the same fear. There is a term, "liquid fear." It’s a kind of fear that flows everywhere, but you can't keep it or define it. I think we all have it. It's a very universal feeling. I like to play with this idea of liquid fear — wherever we go, we carry it, you cannot see it or touch it, but you can feel it.