Shortly after premiering in Discovery at the Toronto International Film Festival, As We Breathe [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
interview : Şeyhmus Altun
fiche film] is now showing in the New Directors section of the San Sebastián International Film Festival, offering us an occasion to speak with Şeyhmus Altun about childhood, admiration, a missing mother and the meaning behind her absence.

Cineuropa: In your director’s notes, you mentioned that the film is inspired by personal experiences. To what extent, and can you share any details?
Şeyhmus Altun: Some fragments are taken directly from my childhood. I was born in Diyarbakır, in the east of Turkey, and when I was eight years old, my family was forced to leave for Istanbul, where we faced financial struggles. One day, my dad came back home with a school bag for me while my sister actually found out that she wouldn’t continue her studies – this is reflected in one scene in the film. Right at that moment, she didn't say anything, but years later, she told me that she was heartbroken that day.

Your sister, then, also played a role in shaping the film?
Not directly in the writing process, but she was the one who reminded me of this story, of which I had forgotten many details. Later, when I started writing about forced migration and its impact on children, I realised this episode was essential to include.

You lend your protagonist Esma a calmness, in contrast with the chaos outside. Is this subtle tone rooted in your own environment, or was it a conscious filmic choice?
Both. In societies like ours, especially for girls, speaking out or expressing feelings is not easy. My protagonist is surrounded by men – her father and three brothers – and has very little space to voice her thoughts. At the same time, I personally admire subtle cinema. I believe that what remains unsaid can be more powerful than what is spoken.

Speaking of admiration, the film language you use brings to mind Turkish masters like Yılmaz Güney, Reha Erdem and Nuri Bilge Ceylan. Were they an influence?
Apart from Güney and Ceylan, Zeki Demirkubuz’s early works are also important references for me. I was also impacted by Andrey Zvyagintsev’s manner of dealing with small-town life, politics and bureaucracy.

In As We Breathe, there’s a chemical factory fire in a remote region, which the authorities do not bother to extinguish. Was this element inspired by real events?
Not a specific one, but fires are unfortunately part of Turkey’s recent history. In the 1980s and 1990s, many Kurdish towns were burned down and evacuated; recently, wildfires have forced people to leave their homes. Sadly, the village where we shot the film was itself hit by a massive fire shortly after production. We wanted to capture the presence of such disasters, not merely in a political sense, but as a universal force that disrupts lives.

Why did you decide not to explain the mother’s fate?
In my mind, she died giving birth to the twins, but I chose not to make it explicit. Her absence remains a void, a silent presence in the household. We hint at it with details like some of the objects in the house, maybe flowers, where you feel a woman’s touch, even though she’s not there. It’s like a soul, a shadow passing through. These are things the mother once placed, but now she’s gone, leaving a void that the children are too young to grasp, although they do feel it.

Also, we wanted the mother to be absent as a way to emphasise that in Turkish or Kurdish families, women often have little say. Even if she were alive, she might not have changed her daughter’s fate. Instead, the grandmother takes her place. She is old, feels close to death and wants to return to her town. In the final scene, Esma physically replaces her at the breakfast table.

The film is more about inner turmoil than external events, and describing that in a script must have been difficult.
Living in Turkey, something tragic happens almost every day – political crises, environmental disasters… But life goes on; people cope by trying to ignore it. That was the rhythm I wanted to capture: the looming danger of the fire contrasted with the family’s everyday life, where the children still play and the father searches for a wife. It’s a way of surviving.

The film feels very precise in its editing and cinematography. How long did it take to craft?
From script to final cut, about two years: one year of writing and pre-production, then the shoot, then six months of editing. We worked with experienced collaborators – cinematographer Cevahir Şahin, who also shot Ceylan’s and Demirkubuz’s latest films, and editor Evren Lus, one of the most established in Turkey. Their experience was crucial, since it was the first feature for both me and my producer.