Gitmek: My Marlon and Brando

Dir: Hüseyin Karabey
Scrs: Hüseyin Karabey, Ayça Damgaci
Ed: Mary Stephen
Cast: Ayça Damgaci, Hama Ali Khan
2008 / Colour / DCP / English, Kurdish & Turkish / Eng subtitles / 92min

At a time when many people are fleeing to the West in search of a safe haven, Ayça makes the opposite journey, heading eastwards to Iraq to be reunited with her love – Hama Ali Khan, a charismatic Iraqi actor whom she met on a film set three years ago. Hama Ali has been sending her video love letters from his Kurdish village, expressing his deep affection for her against the backdrop of hellish violence engulfing his home country. Brilliantly crossing the border between fiction and reality, Hüseyin Karabey deploys the camera as a tool for social criticism, probing into events in which the characters are situated and constructing a narrative collage of the myriad fragments of footage with the thoughtful inputs from his editor. A complex and challenging feat, both technically and creatively, this thought-provoking exposé is worthy of the numerous international awards and acclaim it received.