Events

On April 9 the Istanbul Film Festival showed a film that documents one of the largest literature projects carried out by the Goethe Institute in recent years: “Yollarda – European Literature Goes to Turkey/Turkish Literature Goes to Europe“. The project, which was supported by the EU program “Cultural Bridges“, took writers and musicians to 24 cities in Turkey and eight cities in Europe. The film showing was followed by a discussion with some of the participating writers, including Murat Uyurkulak, Ayşe Kulin and Mario Levi, as well as Claudia Dollinger, Sabine Küper-Büsch and Thomas Büsch. Hosting the discussion was Memet Ali Alabora.


The filmmakers Sabine Küper-Büsch and Thomas Büsch accompanied the project's bookmobile for a year, from September 2009 to June 2010, and in selected locations they filmed the journey through Turkey and to the European cities. The film was shown at 7 p.m. on April 9 as part of the Istanbul Film Festival.

The focus of the film is the bookmobile, which the film accompanies from the harbor city of Trabzon in eastern Turkey through Ankara, Diyarbakir, Konya, Antakya, Adana, Izmir and Tekirdag to Istanbul, and onward to the European cities Pécs, Venice, Duisburg and Brussels.

The film's protagonists — the Turkish bus driver Hakan Köroglu and the German librarian in charge of the bookmobile, Claudia Dollinger — reflect on their impressions of the journey. The film shows not only their different cultural perspectives but also the communication problems that arise between them, as Hakan Köroglu speaks only Turkish and Claudia Dollinger, though she speaks a number of languages, does not speak Turkish. In the course of the journey the two of them develop a way of communicating that is sometimes highly individual and shows the spectator a complex picture of the differences between the two languages and the perspectives of the two speakers.

In short interviews and more detailed portraits, selected writers such as Günter Grass, Zafer Şenocak, Bazhana Apostolova, Perikles Monioudis, Ayşe Kulin, Mario Levi and Murat Uyurkulak describe their viewpoints regarding Turkey and Europe.

The dialogue between the cultures is continued through discussions and interviews with the schoolchildren and students who participated in the events in cities throughout Turkey and Europe.

The documentary film is supplemented by short films that were created in a series of workshops on the topic of “Cultural Bridges“ and Turkey during the bookmobile's journey. Students in the film departments of universities in Trabzon, Ankara, Mersin, Diyarbakir and Izmir produced these shorts, which deal with a variety of cultural and political aspects of life in Turkey. In excerpts they comment on and complement the interviews, discussions and portraits of the writers.

The film showing began at 7 p.m. on April 9, and it was followed at 8 p.m. by a discussion with some of the participating writers, including Murat Uyurkulak, Ayşe Kulin and Mario Levi, as well as Claudia Dollinger, Sabine Küper-Büsch and Thomas Büsch. Hosting the discussion was Memet Ali Alabora.

Film: English with Turkish subtitles
Discussion: German / Turkish