Turkish film shown at Cannes

CANNES

Director Semih Kaplanoğlu’s film “Bağlılık Hasan” (Commitment Hasan) was shown at the 74th Cannes Film Festival on July 12. Kaplanoğlu and actor Umut Karadağ attended the screening of the movie.

Speaking to state-run Anadolu Agency, Kaplanoğlu said they finished the shooting of the film, “which is the second film of his “Commitment” trilogy, before the pandemic, adding, “We shot the film in the last months of 2019, while we were working on the montage in the first months of 2020, the pandemic started. Therefore, there was no difficulty in shooting.”

Stating that they sent the film to the Cannes Film Festival in March 2020, the director said, “The answer we received from the festival was, ‘It is not clear whether we can make it this year, but we want to select your film. If you can wait, we will definitely take your movie to the Cannes Film Festival in 2021, we liked it very much’. That’s why I agreed to wait. After the movie was finished, we met with people who expressed their feelings about the movie. They say that they were very impressed with the story, acting and visuals of the movie.”

Kaplanoğlu said that they had the opportunity to meet with Thierry Fremaux, the general director of the festival, and that they planned to have a dinner together.

Stating that they are having financial difficulties in co-productions, the director said, “I hope the opportunities will improve over time. Meanwhile, I am preparing for my third film. There is a project based on Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar’s ‘Huzur’ novel, ‘Commitment Fikret’, the third part of the Commitment trilogy. We have talks with various producers from around the world. We plan to shoot it around 2022-2023 if the opportunities become available.”

Karadağ, the leading actor in the movie, also stated that coming to the festival was like a dream.

“I think it is the dream of all actors in the world to be at the Cannes Film Festival with their own film. As far as I know, we are one of the 38 films selected from among 2,000 films. This is also a source of pride and honor for me, I represent my country internationally,” Karadağ said.

Noting that they received a very good response after the screening, Karadağ added that Spanish and French producers also showed interest in the film and met with Kaplanoğlu.