UNITED KINGDOM: TURKISH DIRECTOR KUTLUG ATAMAN RELEASES CONTROVERSIAL FILM "LOLA AND BILIDIKID"

Record ID: 388947

  • Title: UNITED KINGDOM: TURKISH DIRECTOR KUTLUG ATAMAN RELEASES CONTROVERSIAL FILM "LOLA AND BILIDIKID"
  • Date: 24th February 2000
  • Summary: LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) DIRECTOR KUTLUG ATAMAN SAYING: "When you are looking from my perspective and when you are looking with the ingredients that I have, I have to reflect the texture, that reality into my work, and violence is very much part of gay existence in Turkey or among the Turkish communities abroad such as Berlin, where I shot th
  • Embargoed: 10th March 2000 12:00
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  • Location: LONDON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM
  • Country: United Kingdom
  • Reuters ID: LVA2RTYZAEKJD0YHWAKSX4IITXTR
  • Story Text: Bilidikid is a macho Turkish guy living a squalid and depressing life in Berlin.He dreams of the day when he will escape to the Mediterranean coast, where he will have a grand wedding, open a bar and have a "normal, respectable" life, with a "normal" family.There's just a small problem.
    Bilidikid is a gay prostitute and lives with a drag queen called Lola and they are penniless.Turkish director Kutlug Ataman's controversial film exploring the gay Turkish underground in Germany is set for release in the United Kingdom after gaining international success and a host of awards.
    Lola & Bilidikid, which has just been released in France, will be shown in the U.K from March 10.The story follows Lola's younger brother Murat (Baki Davrak) as he tries to break free from his tradition-bound immigrant family and find a place for himself in the apparently hostile world in which he lives.His search leads him to Lola (Gandi Mukli), who was thrown out of the family before Murat was born, and a strange cast of cross-dressers and street hustlers, old German aristocrats and young neo-Nazi punks.
    While Murat tries to uncover his family's hidden past, Lola is brutally murdered.Bilidikid (Erdal Yildiz) plots a vicious revenge and enlists Murat's help to set up a disastrously violent finale.
    Ataman, who is openly gay, said he had originally planned to set the story in Turkey, but the gay content made this impossible.
    "It turned out I could not do this story in Turkey because of the subject matter -- people just were too afraid to touch it," he says."And as I was getting more involved with Germany I said 'why not transplant the story to Germany?' because this story has to be told, for me it had to be told.It was one of my demons that I had to face."
    He did thorough research in Berlin, frequenting the kind of environment he would use as the setting for his film.He soon realised that violence would have to be an integral part of the story.
    "When you are looking from my perspective and when you are looking with the ingredients that I have...I have to reflect the texture, that reality into my work, and violence is very much part of gay existence in Turkey or among the Turkish communities abroad such as Berlin, where I shot the film," he said in an interview in his London flat.
    "While I was preparing the film -- during my research -- one of the people I was working with was killed.So how could I not use it...in fact I had to censor myself."
    One of the central characters, Bilidikid, is very violent and macho -- the sort of gay man typically found in the paternalistic cultures of the Mediterranean or in other conservative environments.He desperately wants to be accepted as a leading male figure in the conservative society in which he comes, and demands that Lola has a sex-change so they can have a "normal life".
    "That Bilidikid character is pretty much a Mediterranean character.He will never accept his true identity," says Ataman."He will always be in the closet and he'll be very violent towards gays because he is gay himself.I am sure a lot of the gay-bashers are heterosexual but I believe a huge number of them are gay.They are just closeted homosexuals and they don't want to see themselves reflected on openly gay people so they are trying to get rid of them.If you saw "American Beauty" there is a good example of it in that film."
    When the film was released in Turkey last year -- after much trouble on the part of the producers to find a theatre ready to distribute it -- there were fistfights outside the cinemas.Ataman said he received death threats -- as did journalists who wrote favourably of his film.The film's production team became very worried of the consequences of releasing such a film in a country whose coalition government includes the very conservative Nationalist Action Party.
    But the film was popular.People in evening dress sat in the aisles when it was first screened at the Istanbul Film Festival.And its appeal spread much wider than just the gay community -- Ataman says many of "Lola"'s fans were middle-aged women.
    "Lola" has now been released in eight cities across Turkey and has prompted several minor pop starts to come out of the closet.
    Lola was produced in 1998 and has won a number of awards since.It was invited to open the Panorama section a the Berlin Film Festival in 1999 and won the Special Teddy Jury Prize there.I also won the Grand Jury Prize at the Turin Film Festival, the Audience Award at the 1999 Istanbul Film Festival and was chosen Best Film in the New Festival in New York.
    Ataman was born in Istanbul in 1961, but left to live abroad after he was imprisoned and tortured for filming left-wing activists in the period leading up to Turkey's 1980 military coup.He says his experience hasn't left deep scars, but his relationship with Turkey has always been tricky.Now a U.S.citizen, he owes his filmmaking credentials to years of study at the Sorbonne in Paris and at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA)."Lola & Bilidikid" is his second feature film.
    Ataman has now left Turkey for London, where he intends to live for the foreseeable future.Having worked on some extremely gritty subjects, he says he wants to mark his new start with a change of direction: "I think I'm kind of tired of making social or socially responsible films.I want to be funny because I am a very funny person...I am told, by my friends, and I quite enjoy making people laugh.So I think I want to go a little bit in that direction.Of course there is a huge tradition in this country.I mean the British sense of humour IS the best in my opinion.I guess it's a silly thing to say but I laugh a lot here in this country."
    Ataman has also achieved some critical acclaim as a video artist.With his installation "Women Who Wear Wigs" he became the first Turkish artist ever to be invited to the Venice Biennial.This installation, which comprises four interviews that are projected simultaneously onto one screen, is currently on view at London's Lux gallery.It is this new credibility as an artist that Ataman says gives him the freedom to move away from art-house films into a more commercial environment.
    But he says he remains first and foremost a storyteller -- a role he relishes as one in which people can really make a difference.
    "You know you can have a huge massacre in the middle of Africa today and people will go up in arms.But six months later people will forget about it, unfortunately, and nothing will get done about it," he says."Whereas when you tell stories people listen to or watch, those seem to stay longer.
    Although they are fiction, they seem to stay longer in people's minds.They have a much longer lifespan -- mythologies, for instance.Therefore it is important for me as a storyteller to be able to tell stories that were never told before.
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