TIFF 2022 Ladies Administrators: Meet Selcen Ergun – “Snow and the Bear” (“Kar ve Ayı”)

Selcen Ergun is a director and screenwriter from Turkey. She started her profession as an assistant director, engaged on many nationwide and worldwide productions. Her quick movies “Confrontation” and “A Sunny Day” have been chosen by a number of worldwide movie festivals and awarded prizes. Ergun was chosen for the Medienboard Nipkow Artist-in-Residency in 2019. “Snow and the Bear” (“Kar ve Ayı”) is her debut characteristic movie.

“Snow and the Bear” (“Kar ve Ayı”) is screening on the 2022 Toronto Worldwide Movie Competition, which is operating from September 8-18.

W&H: Describe the movie for us in your personal phrases.

SE: “Snow and the Bear” leads us into the microcosm of a distant Turkish city, more and more lower off from the world by a harsh winter which doesn’t come to an finish, in an virtually surreal approach. Rumor has it that the bears have risen early from their winter-sleep and killed some animals round. Although nobody has actually seen them, individuals are afraid that they’ll come to the city quickly.

Aslı is a younger nurse who has been appointed right here just lately for her compulsory service. One chilly night time, a person from the city goes lacking. On this small city, the place the most important downside for the gendarme previous to the incident had been bats haunting the police station, the sudden disappearance of a person creates all types of rumors. Step-by-step, Aslı finds herself in the course of a whirlwind of energy relationships, secrets and techniques, and doubts. 

It’s the story of a younger lady who has to seek out her approach in a rural society conditioned by the patriarchy. It’s the story of her confrontation with the unknown, doubt and guilt, and her crash-course in discovering a facet of her that’s as powerful because the winter itself.

Setting all this within the chilly counter-fairy story ambiance of an isolating, overwhelming winter, I’m considering exploring the boundaries that one would overcome when in search of a approach out of entrapment. 

W&H: What drew you to this story?

SE: This story is the reflection of a core feeling that I’ve been experiencing more and more as a younger lady, on a really day by day foundation, for a very long time: the sensation of residing underneath fixed strain, which isn’t totally seen however which surrounds us like heavy air, the perpetual feeling of not being secure — which many individuals persistently face in varied locations on earth to completely different extents. Alternatively, [as I’ve] confronted this increasingly, I’ve additionally realized that I’m stronger than I believed earlier than. On this movie, I wished to discover all these emotions of concern, confinement, battle, and hope, within the microcosm of a small remoted city the place they develop into extra tangible.

I can say this movie additionally displays my emotions about nature, my contemplation about the best way we, as people, deal with nature and all of its creatures.

W&H: What would you like folks to consider after they watch the movie?

SE: I consider {that a} movie turns into a self-existing entity that communicates by itself after assembly with its viewers. I’m wanting ahead to see how they’ll work together. The dynamics that may emerge from that interplay provides me pleasure and inspiration for my upcoming movies.

W&H: What was the most important problem in making the movie?

SE: Primarily, the placement and the climate circumstances have been the most important challenges for us. We would have liked the strongest winter that we might discover and as a lot snowfall as attainable. For that, we selected a excessive mountain village on the far northeast a part of Turkey. Throughout the capturing, there have been days that we couldn’t depart the bottom to go to the village the place we have been capturing due to snow storms and frozen roads. Some nights, we wanted to work at lower than -30 levels. We shot some scenes underneath sturdy snow storms.

Nonetheless, I’m grateful for all these challenges since these additionally enabled us to create the distinctive ambiance of the movie. I’m additionally grateful for the actors who took this problem with me and for our cinematographer, Florent Herry, and all of the technical crew who did their finest in these very harsh capturing circumstances. The technical crew made all people really feel secure, it doesn’t matter what. Florent’s capacity to make very tough and sophisticated photographs easy, rendered many issues doable even underneath these tough circumstances.

W&H: How did you get your movie funded? Share some insights into how you bought the movie made.

SE: The movie as a undertaking first bought the very best undertaking award on the Conferences on the Bridge platform at Istanbul Worldwide Movie Competition, and was then chosen to be developed on the Berlinale Abilities Script Station in 2018. I used to be additionally chosen for the Medienboard Nipkow Berlin Artist-in-Residency in 2019. These have been the inexperienced lights for me to pursue this story till the top.

Since we determined to make this movie as a world co-production from the start, we have been conscious of the truth that the method of funding might take longer. However this gave me the prospect to develop the script and write sufficient drafts to hold the story and characters to their full potentials.

It has been a protracted journey, however I’m grateful that I made a decision to take it. Step-by-step, we have been supported by the Republic of Türkiye Ministry of Tradition and Tourism, German-Turkish Co-Manufacturing Improvement Fund, TRT, Filmförderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein, Movie Middle Serbia, and eventually, by Eurimages. So this movie and its intimate story set in a small remoted neighborhood owes its existence to a collaboration on a world scale. It was edited in Hamburg, color-graded in France and Turkey, music scored remotely in the US, and the sound design was made in Istanbul.

W&H: What impressed you to develop into a filmmaker?

SE: [During my] teenage years, I used to be writing some small tales only for myself. Then I found my father’s treasured handbook picture digital camera and began to {photograph} the whole lot round me.

[During my] college years, whereas I used to be finding out design, I used to be spending loads of time within the darkroom, processing the pictures I shot and printing them. I used to be additionally attending some appearing courses, not as a result of I wished to develop into an actress, however the dynamics of appearing have been very intriguing for me. And through this era, my curiosity in all these completely different areas got here collectively. I found that this was what I wished to do, began writing and directing quick movies, after which I made a decision to pursue an MA in directing and scriptwriting.

However I feel the whole lot began once I was making up bedtime tales for myself as a child.

W&H: What’s the very best and worst recommendation you’ve acquired?

SE: One of the best recommendation was to write down an excellent story, an sincere one that you simply actually consider in and that you simply really feel in your cells, and in the end, that may convey the fitting folks on board, one after the other.

I feel I’ve an excellent capability to disregard unhealthy recommendation and delete it from my reminiscence, so I don’t bear in mind what was the worst. 

W&H: What recommendation do you may have for different ladies administrators?

SE: Above all, I consider that perseverance is what’s most essential when you’re making an impartial characteristic movie, particularly if it’s a primary characteristic. I feel every movie’s improvement has its personal tempo and personal dynamics. What a director can do is do her finest to provide what a narrative deserves, each by way of time and vitality.

For me, the bottom line is being cussed sufficient to have the ability to proceed but in addition being versatile sufficient to get the very best out of what comes your approach in the course of the journey. 

W&H: Title your favourite woman-directed movie and why.

SE: Most of my favourite movies are directed by ladies. For the latest one, I can identify “On Physique and Soul” by Ildikó Enyedi. Partly as a result of it’s a contemplation on some topics that I’ve been desirous about as effectively for a while. And in addition I’m actually impressed by the magical, soulful, delicate visible storytelling on this movie, utilizing all the weather of cinema in a delicate however transferring approach.

W&H: What, if any, tasks do you suppose storytellers must confront the tumult on this planet, from the pandemic to the lack of abortion rights and systemic violence?

SE: Storytelling is a medium for human beings to precise, talk, and make sense of their collective and private experiences. Particularly in difficult instances like this, we want this type of collective contemplation extra. Tales have the flexibility to make folks really feel that they don’t seem to be alone. That may make you are feeling stronger.

Like in the previous few years, increasingly ladies scriptwriters and administrators have created the prospect to inform their very own tales, impressed and supported by one another. I want to see this not as an inclination, however as the primary steps in the direction of the elimination of a wierd imbalance that has existed for a very long time. Nonetheless, there may be nonetheless a protracted option to go.

W&H: The movie business has a protracted historical past of underrepresenting folks of colour onscreen and behind the scenes and reinforcing — and creating — damaging stereotypes. What actions do you suppose have to be taken to make Hollywood and/or the doc world extra inclusive?

SE: Individuals from each stage of the manufacturing course of and from each department of the duty distribution have to take steps in their very own area to stability this inequality and stop damaging stereotypes. After all, ones who’re within the decision-making positions have extra accountability to do that.