IUE AT CANNES
Izmir Economics filmmakers will represent Turkey at Cannes Film Festival at “Short Film Corner”. Onur Erdurak, Canberk Günay, Murat Etyemez, and Ali Galip Özkaya, all juniors from Department of Cinema and Digital Media, Izmir University of Economics (IUE), were selected to present their short film titled, ‘Stranded’ at Cannes Film Festival.
Students’ film project, guided by Asst. Prof. Dr. Derya Özkan, Head of IUE Department of Cinema and Digital Media, and Lecturers Dr. Serkan Şavk and Deborah Hardt from the same department, is one of the 223 films chosen among almost one thousand five hundred films worldwide. The 71st Cannes Film Festival will take place on May 14 – 19 in France. While short films from countries such as Germany, Ireland, Argentina, England, Lebanon, Belgium, etc. will be presented at the festival, IUE students’ film, one of the two short films selected from Turkey, seems to draw attention a lot.
Onur Erdurak, the director of the film, reported that they shot an 8-minute film based on the scenario they developed as part of the ‘Film Production’ course. “The film is telling the story of a man living in a dystopic future and resisting a government that makes use of the slogan “We are safe in our houses” to control its citizens. The film tries to find an answer to the question ‘If you repeat a lie often enough, will people will believe it?’ We tried to see the world from the perspective of the man living alone, and shot the movie based on that,” said Erdurak.
Erdurak stated that they attended the Cinéfondation selection, which is part of the Official Selection of the Festival de Cannes. “Kemal Erdurak acted in our film. He suggested we attend the Cannes Cinéfondation, which is dedicated to student films. We also got a feedback from the jury of Short Film Corner saying that we were pre-selected for their platform. After that, we applied for Short Film Corner with our film ''Stranded''. We found out that our film would be presented under the category of short film throughout the festival. We are very happy to be representing our university and country there,” said Erdurak.