Film on Ertuğrul frigate out next fall

ISTANBUL

Japanese Ambassador to Ankara Yutaka Yokoi, who visited the Black Sea province of Trabzon, has said well-known figures from Turkish and Japanese cinema will star in the Turkish-Japanese joint film on the Ertuğrul frigate disaster, which will be complete next fall. While visiting Trabzon Mayor Abdil Celil Öz, Yokoi said the city of Trabzon was better known than Ankara in Japan. “Because Trabzon is in the historic Silk Road and known as one of the significant cities of the Black Sea,” he said.

The film is being made in commemoration of an Ottoman frigate that sank off an island around the Japanese town of Kushimoto in 1890 while returning from a goodwill voyage to Japan.

The Ertuğrul Frigate was sent by the Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid II to give a gift to the Japanese emperor. While returning from the voyage, the frigate encountered a typhoon off the coast of the Wakayama Prefecture and sank on Sept. 16, 1890. The accident resulted in the loss of 533 sailors.