INTERVIEW / Selim Güneş – White as Snow / Kaan Karsan

2011.05.11
eksisinema.com

We talked with Selim Güneş about his first film, White as Snow. White as Snow, which has returned with awards from the festivals it attended, opens in cinemas this Friday. We strongly recommend that you see this compelling film, which leaves no viewer indifferent. We thank Mr Selim once again for both his modesty and his warmth.

First of all, as such a well-known and well-loved photographer, how did you decide to make a film? Was cinema always on your mind?

The idea of making a film didn’t come to me all of a sudden. It was something that had been there since my childhood. Besides, most photographers have the idea of making a film somewhere in the back of their minds. I was already telling a story with the photographs I took. When the conditions needed to make this dream come true came together, the first thing that came to mind was Sabahattin Ali’s Ayran, which I had read years before. And the process began…

Was there a director or a film that inspired you for White as Snow?

What inspired White as Snow were people from other art forms such as music, poetry, painting and photography. People like John Lennon, Nazım Hikmet, Michelangelo, Josef Koudelka. But as for film, I’d also like to name some of the directors who have had an influence on me: Terence Mallick, Kar Wai Wong, Akira Kurosawa, Andrey Tarkovski and Fred Zinnemann…

What is the process of shooting a director’s first film like? What difficulties did you face? After cinema, did photography feel foreign or familiar to you?

A first film means many firsts. The process begins with the preparatory period in which you decide how you are going to shoot the film. For me that meant the three years before our shooting dates. I studied like a student. The more you learn, the more you feel how much you are lacking. That means working and researching even more. The screenplay, choosing the locations, deciding on the actors and the crew, the shoot, post-production and the other steps that have to be taken… The person who has to decide on everything, absolutely everything, is the director. And if you have no experience, your job looks even harder. But for me, all these stages of making a film weren’t very tough. There were two things that made my job easier. The first was my luck. Everyone, from my producer to my actors, from my cinematographer to the crew, both did their jobs well and took the film to heart and worked wholeheartedly. Working with such people was a stroke of luck for me. The second, as a master filmmaker once said, was my instincts, which I trusted whenever I needed them.

The place of photography is always the same for me. It is half of my heart.

What does White as Snow offer the audience? With what expectations should the audience watch White as Snow?

The film is the story of one day in a child’s life… In this one-day story there is hope, there is courage and there is love… White as Snow is a fairytale-like film in which dreams, memories and reveries mingle with reality… In this film, which speaks to these feelings, what I tried to emphasise is the ‘hope’ in John Lennon’s words, “where there is life, there is hope”… So what awaits the audience is a fairytale-like film.

The audience should watch the film with a little patience, a little attention and a great deal of open-mindedness. The audience is facing a film that will excite them a little, move them a lot, and let them savour the taste of cinema…

Does the film tell a story mainly through your main character Hasan, or is Hasan just one part of the bigger picture?

The film tells the story of one day in Hasan’s life. But it doesn’t tell the story of Hasan. Through Hasan and the people who touch Hasan’s life, it says certain things about life…

How many clues do your photographs give about the visual side of the film? Could you say White as Snow is a film like your photographs?

A photographer’s eye is both an advantage and a disadvantage for cinema. I knew that the images would be one of the things I had to pay most attention to. A photographic image may be very good visually, but if it loses its meaning in the moving image, that is a disadvantage. It’s a knife-edge situation, you see. I took great care to use the advantage. What is the scene telling, where should the camera stand, what should the shot size be, what should the perspective be, which lens suits the perspective, and what will my framing be like? And the result: did I get what I wanted in this shot? So, by paying attention to these questions and working backwards from the end, I decided on the images. In making the final decision, I think my background in photography contributed to my film. When I watch the film now, I see that this is so. But I can’t say that the style I have in photography is there in White as Snow. I think I need to make at least a few more films to establish my own line in cinema.

Is White as Snow a film of atmosphere? Does the audience need to enter the film and give themselves over completely to the story and the visuals?

My answer to both questions is yes, White as Snow is a film of atmosphere.

Is White as Snow a minimalist and melancholic film?

Can White as Snow be called minimalist? Maybe yes… Melancholic? Never!..

How many viewers do you expect the film to reach? Is this a film that appeals to the mainstream, one in which everyone will find something of themselves?

The expectations of the people around me go like this: ten thousand would be good, fifty thousand would be great, but a hundred thousand would be wonderful. I say, why not a million? Nesli Çölgeçen once said something like this: Directors are dream merchants. We have two dreams. The first is to make a film. The second is to dream that millions of viewers will come to the film we have made. So I am sincere in wanting a million viewers. I hope my second dream comes true as well.

Very recently a good film writer congratulated me, saying that everyone would read White as Snow differently and that very few films manage that. If the audience keeps thinking about the film after leaving the cinema, it means I have managed to achieve something.

What would you like to say about the recent period of Turkish cinema? Which filmmakers do you follow, what kind of period are we going through?

The numerical increase in film production has also brought an increase in quality films. Besides, the fact that very talented and knowledgeable people are making films as directors in this period is a stroke of luck for Turkish cinema.

I try to watch as many films as possible. The filmmakers I follow in particular are Terence Mallick, Gus Van Sant and Kar Wai Wong.

Have you started work on your second film, do you have anything in mind?

Work on my second film has started. The synopsis and the treatment are more or less done. We are starting work on the screenplay. It will be a film set in İstanbul. We are also running around for a co-production. So once again a challenging but enjoyable second process has begun.

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