KARANLIKTA ISLIK ÇALANLAR
Project type: Feature Film
Genre: Dead Pan Comedy
Shooting: 15 June-15 July, Ankara, Turkey
Director/Writer: Pınar Yorgancıoğlu
Producers: Bekir Yusuf Açıksöz&Furkan Besli, Dilde Mahalli, Zeynep Ekmekci
Co-Producers: Vanya Rainova (Portokal), Sandra Müller (Marlene Film), Michael Eckelt (Riva Film)
Cinematographer: Jonas Schneider
Art Director: Ceyda Yüceer
Markets: La Biennale di Venezia’s Biennale College Cinema, Sarajevo Film Festival CineLink Co-Production Market, Meetings on the Bridge Co-Production Market of Istanbul Film Festival, Antalya Film Forum, Ankara Film Festival
LOGLINE
An encounter with the Far Beyond burdens recently retired Melih with an existential awakening. Soon he, his wife, and their daughter are all haunted by the ghosts of lost opportunities, alternate possibilities, and doubts…
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
Those Who Whistle After Dark is the debut feature film of Pınar Yorgancıoğlu. Our project took off its journey at La Biennale di Venezia’s Biennale College Cinema and has traveled around prestigious international film markets. After having completed our development process, we have formed a collaboration with passionate and young likeminded filmmakers from across Europe. With in-kind funding we have received from Germany and Bulgaria, we have international teams coming to join us at the cinematography and sound design departments. We will start shooting in mid-June in Ankara and we are in need of gap financing to close our shooting budget. Due to political and economic reasons, independent filmmaking has never been easy in Turkey and the ever-increasing inflation made things even worse. The funding we received in the last couple of years has lost more than half of its value and the funding from Europe needs to be spent there mainly for post-production. We want to be able to provide necessary production conditions to shoot this film to the best of our abilities and your support will be of outmost importance to realize this.
SYNOPSIS
Contemporary Turkey: a divided land of multiple crises — of politics, economy, environment, and health. But a different one silently boils underneath: the crisis of meaning. Especially for the middle-class who has the means of their survival somewhat secured — but is doomed by the question of ‘survival for what?’. Through the tale of a dysfunctional urban Turkish family, THOSE WHO WHISTLE AFTER DARK is a playful and melancholic meditation on the struggles of our mere existence and beyond.
Mr. Melih, the retiring manager of the Natural History Museum, clumsily tries to adapt to civilian life; but following an encounter with a supernatural presence, his middle age depression spirals into an existential crisis. He seeks solace from his family, but they are busy with their own crises. His wife Suzan, an ambitious nurse who’s stuck in a life she’s disappointed with, has fallen victim to a scam she cannot tell to anyone. In the meantime their adult daughter Toprak, who’s an unemployed aspiring writer and a video-game addict, plots a doomed escape to USA to run away from her piling failures and an increasingly bleak future. Our film follows these three lonely souls as they each search for themselves while trying not to lose one another.
DIRECTOR PINAR YORGANCIOĞLU
Pınar Yorgancıoğlu is an alumna of Columbia University, of Venice Biennale College Cinema, of Sarajevo Talents, and of the Screenwriters Lab organized by the Sundance Institute & !f Istanbul. Her short films Prayers at Dawn and Mrs. Nebile’s Wormhole received awards and played at festivals and venues worldwide including the Lincoln Center in New York. She is the co-creator of the interactive web-series The Art of Hospitality currently in pilot stage, co-produced by Warner Music Group and Eko Studio NY. Her preferred side hustle is editing, where her credits include the 2019 Sundance jury award winner short film Green. Those Who Whistle After Dark is her debut feature.
CAST
Fotoğrafların yanyana olduğu bir şekilde yapabilir miyiz? Altta da karakterler ve oyuncu isimleri yer alır?
Melih – Müfit Kayacan
Suzan – Hülya Gülşen
Toprak – İnci Sefa Cingöz
PRODUCERS
Bekir Yusuf Açıksöz ve Furkan Besli started producing as a duo in 2013. Their first feature film Muna (2014) received the Best Supportinng Actor Award at Antalya Film Festival. They produced the absurd comedy Bünyamin (2015) and wrote & produced the feature film Durak (2017). Shortly after, they started producing TV series. Their producer credits include the ongoing docuseries Savaşın Efsaneleri.
After 15 years of experience in different levels of production Dilde Mahalli founded her own company Rosa Film in 2021. She worked in production of the films The Impeccables (2012-Busan, Antalya FF) by Ramin Matin, Something Useful (2019-Tallinn, Seattle FF) and Queen Lear (2019-Sarajevo, Goteborg, Big Sky FF) by Pelin Esmer and Chronology (2019-Busan, Warsaw, Santa Barbara FF) by Ali Aydın. Currently she completed Emine Yıldırım’s debut film Apollon by Day, Athena by Night (FirstFilmFirst, Berlinale Script Station) and in pre-production stage with Pelin Esmer’s sixth feature “Wait Till You Hear Mine” and Pınar Yorgancıoğlu’s debut film Those Who Whistle After Dark. She is also a member of SEYAP (Film Producers’ Association of Turkey) and GMK, the Association of Graphic Designers in Turkey.
Zeynep Ekmekci started working in the film industry as the associate producer of the feature documentary Invisible to the Eye (2020 –DokuFest). She produced the feature film AMA (2022), which was shot on a micro-budget during the pandemic and premiered at MUBI Turkey. She produced short films Stormers and Tower that premiered at Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival last year. She worked in the production of several international films under various capacities. Currently, she is producing the debut feature film Those Who Whistle After Dark, a Turkey-Bulgaria-Germany co-production, and developing
the documentary, Kızıltoprak. She has a MA from New York University and is a Sarajevo Talents alumni.
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