After earning her degrees in Music and Theater from Ankara and Istanbul State Conservatories, Ayçıl Yeltan recorded with distinguished musicians. She portrayed many significant roles as an actor at Dormen Theater in İstanbul. She earned her MFA at CalArts in acting with a scholarship and appeared in numerous stage, film, and TV productions in İstanbul, New York, and Los Angeles. Ayçıl writes, directs, and produces films and continues her acting career in independent film productions internationally. Her second short film “Topanga” she wrote, directed, and produced won 6 awards in global film competitions and film festivals including 2 Audience Awards for Best Short Film between 2019 and 2020. Yeltan’s new feature film “Fidan” was granted “First Feature Film Support” by the Ministry of Culture, Turkey, and won a film score award at Fest Pitching Forum in Portugal-Marseille. She also won a prize for post-production in work in progress program at Med Film Festival in Rome. The film premiered at the Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival in her home country this month, along with the European Premiere at Festival CINEMED, Montpellier, France. Their film won two awards at the Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival for Best Editing and Best Supporting Actress.
I had the opportunity to speak with Ayçıl Yeltan about her gorgeous film and feature debut, which will continue it’s festival run. This is one to watch out for, a true beauty of cinematography with dynamic and authentic performances. Her film is about 13-year-old Fidan who gets accepted to a renowned high school away from home. However, it is not easy for Fidan to leave her younger brother and father who is lost in the shadow of sad events.
I thought we could start with you by talking about the inspiration for this film.
There are multiple things that got me started. Thinking about the inspiration, one thing was that education is so important for girls, especially in the Middle East. I mean, Turkey is not exactly in the Middle East, but its predicament in Europe is similar. And I started thinking about how mothers are important. These thoughts started rambling in my mind. And then I would keep seeing this girl who is going to become a young woman too. She is coming in to her high school years and is thinking about her education.
Was young girls finding education for themselves a cause that you were really passionate about elevating?
Yeah, it started like that. As you see it’s not very underlying. I tried to not to be didactic in the film. I adopted a completely impressionistic approach. And yes, there is also the underpinning subject of Anatolian women. Anatolia is a home for many civilizations throughout history, and there are many powerful women who have lived there. I was interested in how things work there and how women help each other and support each other. That’s why I have three different generations in the movie to simply shows how the life of a woman lives here.
Can you talk about working with your cinematographer?
Somebody else was going to shoot this film with me, but things happen. The cinematographer Arda Yildiran joined us about three weeks prior. I was worried because the cinematographer’s role is one of the most important considering this is a moving picture. But I was lucky because Arda is very talented. I wanted the whole film to be shot over his shoulder. I know how hard this is for the cinematographer to do, but it keeps with this impressionistic idea that I wanted to express. I wanted it to look natural as if the viewer is looking from the window. When I explained this concept to him he immediately agreed. His ability to control the camera was so good and we were able to explore things together as we went through the production process. We worked very well together.
The goregous nature on display in the film makes me want to visit Turkey someday.
As the cinematography is so beautiful, another element I wanted to talk about the film’s music.
I’m also a musician. I started my artistic journey as a musician in a boarding school in Ankara. I play the cello. The original music was done by a very dear childhood friend who also shared this artistic journey of music with me. We’re very close. My previous short I directed was scored by him too. We worked very well together in that movie. He was involved with this project from the beginning. As a matter of fact he’s one of the first people who read the script. There is also some folk and classical music that we used. The title music is a very famous song in Turkey. So many people have used it but I wanted to as well.
I like how you broke conventions with this film. Your main actress was amazing. You just couldn’t take your eyes off of her. Her face was so expressive. Can you talk about her, and the rest of your cast?
Our first financial support came first from the Ministry of Culture in Turkey. Nine people got it that year in 2022 and we were one of them. And so we started with casting. There were some cast members that I already wrote the the roles for like the character Nesrin and the cafe owner, Recep. These are my very dear friends. We went to acting school together and we acted in some stage plays together. So I knew these people very well. We were not sure who would play the main actress because there’s not many young actors who are available for this kind of role. It had to be the right person with the right face. I didn’t write any dialogue for this film. I knew if I found the right face I could help mold the young talent. I wanted someone that had never done this before with no prior education in acting.
Yeah, so natural.
So my sister who is also the producer on this film found Smyrna Cabas’ picture from one of her photographer friends. She asked them “who is this girl and how old is she?” She was twelve years old and when we started shooting she was thirteen. That worked out perfectly because in the film Fidan is passing an exam to go to a good high school. So that’s how we found our Lela. Before we started shooting we met several times to prepare for the role. The first time we met I noticed she was a great listener. This was very important to me because listening is the core of acting. I needed someone who could pay attentionyou know? She did so well and she is so talented. She’s gonna be an actress for sure although she doesn’t think so (laughing).
I mean you just couldn’t keep your eyes off of her. She seemed to grow up a lot by the end of the film. In the beginning she seemed so young and smaller.
That is because we shot the film in two different seasons. I specifically wanted to do that because the film was to take place in the winter, spring and summer. We had to do it this way because the kids at that age grow up so fast. So we shot the film in chronological order.
Can you talk about what you hope people see in in your film?
Everyone has a different kind of agenda when they watch films. It’s like how we all dream differently. I like to make my films quiet. The more quiet the better, you know? I wanted the visuals to speak for themselves. Because in reality we don’t talk that much. But in television everything is so dialogue heavy. It’s very tiring to watch. I consider a film as a moving picture and I want the audience to have an experience with the film like when they go to a museum or an exhibit. You look around and one picture grabs your attention. You go to it and you don’t know why. That’s what I want my audience for this film to feel. I want them drawn into the artistry of the moving pictures.
