Can Baz / He Who Plays with Life

free admission

Thursday, 28 July 2005 | 16:00

Friday, 29 July 2005 | 16:00

Saturday, 30 July 2005 | 16:00

75 min, Germany 2004 Turkish with German subtitles

Directed by: Özay Sahin

Camera: Micah Magee

Stillborn into the century

Something of us is lost by erosion

Something of us is burning in Hakkari (East Anatolia)

Some of us are sniffing glue in Beyoglu (Istanbul)

(a song by the band Siya Siyabend)

The impact of the most recent wave of suppression and burning of villages, that began in 1992, are reflected in the example of the drug-addicted brothers Murat und Ahmet Öztürk living in exile in Istanbul’s Beyoglu district. The film portrays their way of life with the band Siya Siyabend and their friend, the solvent-addicted street child Hasan Isik, and their search for freedom by the wrong means.

In our world, where apparent security changes shape so swiftly, the state of owning nothing that might get lost and living on the street is a corresponding and consistent way of life. Although death is deliberately flirted with to make life more exciting, there is still the desire to play Don Quixote – simply because one exists. They bear their own guilt in the name of all mankind. And heaven is their witness. (Özay Sahin)

Özay Sahin, born 1976 in Erzincan, lives in Berlin

Film Programme

of the exhibition “Urban Realities: Focus on Istanbul”