Directed by DİLEK KAYA
2018 / 85 min. / with English subtitles
In June 2016, the director of this documentary film bought 18 discarded letters from a flea market in Turkey. Written in 1973 and 1974, the letters were addressed to Kâzım Küçükalp, apparently an urban, middle-class, nineteen-year-old student. To the first impression of the director, Kâzım was a smart, vivacious, and adventurous young boy, who was a fan of European and American rock bands of the time. After accidentally discovering that Kâzım died during a mountain expedition in 1974, at the age of 19, the director decided to learn and eternalize his story and she set off a journey. She found the boy’s high school friends, his elder brother, and the mountaineers who witnessed his death. The documentary tells the story of her journey and the story of Kâzım by intertwining the two. This is also a story of 1970s urban youth culture in Turkey. Recipient of the Special Mention at the BTF’s Documentary and Short Film Competition in 2019.
Selected Festivals and Awards
- Boston Turkish Festival Documentary and Short Film Competition (2019): Special Mention
- TRT International Documentary Awards (2018): Ministry of Culture and Tourism Award
Director DİLEK KAYA
Dilek Kaya is Professor of Communications in the Department of Radio, Television and Cinema at Yaşar University in Izmir, Turkey. She has published essays in national and international journals on a variety of topics, including the history of Turkish cinema, Turkish Yeşilçam stars and their audiences, the censorship of domestic and foreign films in Turkey, and Islamic cinema. She is the author of The Midnight Express Phenomenon: The International Reception of the Film Midnight Express (The Isis Press, 2005; Georgias Press, 2010). Kazım is Kaya’s debut documentary.
