At the 28th Shanghai International Film Festival, Turkish director Reis Çelik announced “Blind Night,” a Turkish-German co-production set in the 1980 Turkish military coup. The film is in contention for the Golden Goblet Award in the main competition category.
The film centers on Fatma, a left-wing activist who hides in a narrow space between wooden planks at a construction site and must rely on a group of workers she has never met to evade arrest. Çelik chose to base the story on personal experiences and place women at the center of the drama.
“Many countries are accustomed to political repression, and most similar films have male protagonists,” Çelik said. “By having a female protagonist, I hope to give a voice to women in this genre.”
Shot in black and white, the film reflects Çelik’s view that color can obscure the emotional heart of a story. At the film’s SIFF press conference, he said he wanted audiences to focus on the nakedness of the story and the eyes looking out through the narrow gaps in the trees.
Night of Blindness is the second film in Celik’s planned Night Trilogy, following 2012’s Night of Silence, which won the Crystal Bear Award at the Berlin International Film Festival. Director Çelik said at a press conference that the entire trilogy reflects his concern that humanity is moving toward a point where we can no longer hear, see, or understand each other. He added that a third film, tentatively titled “Sağır Gece” (Deaf Night), is also being planned.
Çelik said that as a filmmaker he wanted to highlight “certain aspects of reality that are downplayed and ignored,” and said he hoped Chinese audiences would relate to the material. “Türkiye and China have a lot in common in terms of worldview and history,” he said.
Along with the director, the main actors Ishtar Gökseven, who plays the military commander, and Aydin Orak, who plays the inspector general, appeared at the press event. It was the first time for both of them to visit Shanghai, and they said the experience was “a lot of fun.” Göksheben said at a press conference that acting in near total darkness forced him to rely on his voice, posture, and shadows to convey emotion, which he said was a great gift for an actor.
The Shanghai International Film Festival will be held until June 21st.
