ELA AND HILMI & ALI
Ziya Demirel
ISTOS FILM, TN YAPIM, YUMURTA YAPIM SANAT (Turkey), fiction
Subtle tragic story of a relationship of three: ELA, an earthquake survivor; HILMI a maths teacher, also spouse of Ela; ALI a minor student of Hilmi, the son of the building custodian.
ELA prepares for the university exams and discovers her new home, while HILMI’s at work. At nights they play flight simulation, check Ela’s homework, try to get intimate. None of them pushes it. Custodian’s 15-year-son ALI, involuntarily studies for high school exams, assisted by Hilmi. Fed up with homework, Ali secretly raps. During Hilmi’s absence, Ela and Ali make fun of his teaching skills. This game soon turns to an intimate role-playing at which Hilmi accidentally overhears and notices Ela’s joy. He invites Ali more, while secretly observing the duo. Hilmi realizes Ela’s attempt to help Ali with the answers and changes his own solutions to the wrong ones. Meanwhile Ela discovers Hilmi’s porn archive. The night the trio spends a day at a picnic, Ela seduces Hilmi with gestures influenced by the porn. Hilmi asks her where she learnt these, first in panic, then seriously furious. This leads to fire.
Ziya Demirel / IMDb
ZIYA DEMIREL was born in 1988, Turkey. He started theatre at high school and he directed his first short film while studying engineering. He continued his studies for film directing & scriptwriting at the Prague Film School. There he shot his well-received short film EVICKO. The last short film he directed, SALI Tuesday, premiered in the Official Selection of Cannes FF in 2015, and then was screened and selected in festivals such Toronto, Sarajevo, Les Arcs, Sundance, Rotterdam and was awarded as Best Short Film at Les Arcs, Istanbul, Malatya and with Special Jury Mention in Sarajevo. Ela and Hilmi and Ali is his debut feature.
Director’s statement
ELA AND HILMI & ALI is designed as a modern, subtle and absurd tragedy, concerned about roles in marriage, family and education. The structure follows repetitions where each day is similar to the previous but building up to a catastrophe.
As Ela & Hilmi fail to fulfill a wife-husband relationship, they stick to the teacher-student level. During Hilmi’s absence, Ela and Ali play the roles of the dysfunctional marriage and tease Hilmi’s nerd skills. Hilmi who notices this, doesn’t intervene and carries on as if nothing happens as he accepts Ela’s joie de vivre with Ali. Three of them try to figure out each of their places in the puzzled relationship. The social context of the story transforms into a psychological family triangle. Although subtle, the distance to the characters is close therefore it’s a warm film where the audience follows emotions.
Isolation from the outer world establishes a detailed and layered relationship with the setting of the house. Its architecture, decoration and the sound of it become the most important audiovisual element of the story. The setting includes itself to the theme of roleplaying as well. The house where no one acts as themselves, becomes a class and then a crashing plane - when the tragedy makes itself noticed. The usage of setting along with the insistence of the fire insurance seller, the story reminds a modern Greek tragedy.
Where are we at?
Total budget: 350.000,00 EUR
Financing in place: 305.000,00 EUR
Sales agent: none
Territories available: World
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Production Company profile
ISTOS FILM was founded in 2013 in Istanbul in order to produce innovative, daring, art-house, short or feature length fiction or documentary films. Producer of PHASES OF MATTER (dir. Deniz Tortum, pr. IFFR’s Bright Future 2020), of Biennale College Cinema project YUVA (dir. Emre Yeksan, pr. Venice FF 2018), THE GULF (dir. Emre Yeksan, pr. Venice FF Critics' Week 2017) and the short film TUESDAY (dir. Ziya Demirel, pr. in the Official Competition Cannes FF 2015). Member of EAVE and EWA networks.