Logline:

An 11-year-old boy secretly sets out to make a movie by capturing rare moments

of joy in his abusive family as part of a school project to impress the girl he loves.

Synopsis

11 year old AZAT, gets often bullied for being fat, is secretly in love with Demet which convinces him to attend a filmmaking class. Despite his attempts, Azat cannot convince his mother BEREN (40), who physically and psychologically abuses him. So he forges his mother’s signature and enters the class. The requirement: shoot “a happy family” film. Azat has no one else to call ‘my family’ but his grandfather BAHADIR (70). As Azat attempts to secretly shoot the film, the grandfather is hospitalized and AZAT calls his estranges aunt MELIKE (37). With her arrival, the family conflict deepens.

Azat buys a spy camera to capture his family’s happy moments, just to uncover dark and painful truths of his family.

While other students present their happy family films, Azat shocks the class with a video of his mother beating him up.

 Director’s Statement

My motivation to make this film is to explore the inner world of a child who is being abused by his family. I seek ways of capturing visual representations of loneliness, desperation and confusion stemming from the entanglement of love and abuse, from a child’s perspective.

What would be the emotional and behavioral imprints of abuse in their world? Transitioning from childhood to adolescence, Azat grapples with discovering his own identity in a family weighed down by their past. Azat’s mother Beren is resorting to violence against her son, born of a marriage in young age, just to escape her father’s violence and continues to struggle to come to terms with her mother’s suicide.

Finally, my aim is to convey the story and the emotions it evokes in a manner that resonates with the audience and is convincing to them. So, I aim to portray the complexity, depth, and richness of Azat’s world by employing realistic performances and deploying a handheld camera to follow him throughout the film.

Alkim Özmen – Director

Samet Hamiş – Producer

Short Bio of the director

Born in 1979, Alkim Özmen is a filmmaker based in Istanbul. He has directed three documentaries and five short films. His short films “Story of a Job Interview” and “In Search of Dad One Night” were screened in many national & international festivals and received awards. He has also directed commercials. In addition to directing, he has also participated in the production of over a hundred episodes of TV series and fourteen feature films as an assistant director. One of these films is “Once Upon a Time in Anatolia” which was awarded the Grand Prix by the Jury in Cannes Film Festival in 2011. He has lectured at the film and television departments of several universities in Istanbul. He is an alumnus of Berlinale Talents and has participated in script development workshops such as Meditalents and Sources2.