Amateur director from Turkey wins top prize at Venice Film Festival

Last weekend, an amateur director from Turkey with no prior experience won one of the most prestigious awards in European cinema.

Murat Firatoglu, a full-time lawyer and cinema enthusiast, received the Special Orizzonti Jury Prize at the 81st Venice International Film Festival for his feature film One of Those Days When Hemme Dies.

Firatoglu’s success was received with pleasant surprise by Turkey's cinema community, as the first-timer personally wrote, produced, directed and starred in the film.

On the surface, the film depicts a simple conflict between a farm worker and his supervisor over late payments in Kurdish-dominated Siverek, in the southeastern province of Sanliurfa, where tomatoes are dried in bulk on white covers under an excruciating sun.

After a bitter argument, Eyup, the protagonist, decides to kill the foreman and leaves the farm to plan the murder. But that decision triggers a series of events that lead him on a journey that puts him in a different frame of mind.

What is surprising about Firatoglu’s achievement is that he has no formal cinema training and had never had any movie - not even a short film - screened at any festival.

In an interview with Middle East Eye, Firatoglu, 41, said that since childhood, he had been obsessed with being a creative, always reading and imagining tales and adventures.

'The main message of the movie is that we could all be more polite in our daily lives and treat each other in a pleasant way'

- Murat Firatoglu

“I became a lawyer to satisfy my father’s wishes, but creation and movie production is my life’s passion,” he said. “I’ve wanted to make a movie since I was 15.”

Firatoglu said he always had the "courage of ignorance" and a sense of indiscretion that pushed him to produce One of Those Days When Hemme Dies, despite his lack of experience and years of failed attempts to make a film.

To produce the film, Firatoglu had to take out a loan from a public bank, borrow money from friends, and even use gold jewelry from his older sister in 2022.

He spent an initial budget of more than 800,000 Turkish lira ($55,600 in 2022) in total on the project. He has since repaid all his loans, which had doubled due to Turkey’s runaway inflation.

Firatoglu told MEE he first thought of the film's title while strolling around Siverek, reflecting on life on the farms and in households.

He was sleeping in the same room as his mother - as is common in the area - when he came up with the script one night.

“The main message of the movie is that we could all be more polite in our daily lives and treat each other in a pleasant way,” he said.

“One doesn’t need to define oneself as an employer or give orders to one’s co-workers. You can just be a nice person.”

He explains that being a lawyer for more than a decade made him more sympathetic to people who are mistreated in their daily lives.

“I think the tomato is a ridiculous vegetable, and people fight over it. Imagine that,” he says of his film. “We shot this movie during an intense heatwave, and I placed the protagonist in a claustrophobic setting, surrounded by the sun, large rocks, and empty fields.”

He says he didn’t expect the film to eventually be considered a dark comedy, which was not his original intention.

Many insiders in the Turkish film industry have likened the quality of Firatoglu’s cinematography to that of Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Turkey's most famous filmmaker, who has won multiple awards at the Cannes Film Festival, including for Winter Sleep (2014), which received the Palme d'Or, the highest prize.

'I trained myself by sometimes watching ten movies a day and spending hours on the Magnum Photos website'

- Murat Firatoglu

Firatoglu said he had some help from two cinematographers, but he has had an eye for photography since he was seven-years-old, when he apprenticed at his older brother’s photography shop.

“I trained myself by sometimes watching six movies a day and spending hours on the Magnum Photos website,” he said.

“I’ve been taking photographs since my early childhood, and all of this trained my eye and helped me develop an aesthetic sense.”

Firatoglu said that he was more than happy for his success to serve as an example to others in Turkey, encouraging amateur filmmakers like him to exceed their own expectations.

“I also want the audience of the movie to take a break from their daily problems, refresh themselves, and relax a bit while watching it,” he said.

Editor's note: The article was updated with a correction of the film's budget, which was previously stated as $23,500.