LOVE in İSTANBUL

 

İstanbul. A place where civilizations gathered and merged for centuries… Khalkedon, Byzantion, Augusto Antonio, Constantinople … The capital which Emperor Constantine wanted to build across the “land of the blind” with what he brought from old Rome . The legend that lived its second era with Fatih Sultan Mehmet… The center which has shaped the politics of the world for centuries…

İstanbul can be described in many ways. But no matter how you described it, there is always a part of İstanbul that remains untold. You need to tell the secret of this city –its mysteries, spells, blues, enthusiasm and of course the glory that flows from inside all those centuries.

There were such loves lived in this city that has changed the course of history. When we chase the traces of these loves, they bring us to the society, politics, culture, art and the mentality of the times they were lived. Each stone of Istanbul has a mark that witnesses the history. And each of these marks has a story. Like looking at Hagia Sophia we see the largest sacred structure of Eastern Rome and the architectural glory in its magnificent monolithic dome. We know the history of how it turned into a new form of life with its minarets after it was plundered and wrecked by the Crusaders. But without knowing the people who started Hagia Sophia, İstanbul is unfinished. Without the love of Justinian and Theodora, would Hagia Sophia exist? I think we could find the answer to this question fifteen hundred years earlier.

 

 

 

Director

Yavuz Özkan
Screenplay

Yavuz Özkan

Cast Ali Murat Erengül, Meriç Benlioğlu, Bülent Alkış, Nil Günal,
 

Pınar Alabora,  Erdoğan Aydemir, Tanya Djaziri, Koray Onur

Director of Photography

Sinan Güngör

Editing

Mehmet Atan

Score

Müzikotek, Universal Taxim Edition

Producer

Aycan Çetin, Yavuz Özkan  

Production Company

Z1 Film Atölyesi

 

 

 

"LOVE in İSTANBUL" in Press

"At Istanbul Festival, Foreign and Homegrown Films", by Susan Fowler, The New York Times, 27.03.2011