A short film from Türkiye makes it to Venice Film Festival after decades

A Turkish short film is making its world premiere in September at the 79th Venice Film Festival after 23 years.

The film, directed by Turan Haste and written and produced by Muhammed Furkan Dasbilek, will be screened at the festival’s Orizzonti (Horizons) section and will compete against 11 other shorts.

“Rutubet (Moisture)” tells the story of teacher Ishak in a remote village in Anatolia who deals with concepts like guilt and innocence surrounding the disappearance of a female elementary school student, all in a compact 20 minutes of storytelling.

The film was co-produced by Engin Cebiroglu and Ramazan Kilic, with production assistance from TRT 12 Punto, Türkiye’s largest script development and co-production platform.

The story is shot in Türkiye’s Bolu province, in a village called Bali that’s a part of Kibriscik municipality. 

“We left Istanbul in September for location scouting, visiting 15 village schools,” he explains.

After preparing for the shoots, getting permits and finding cast members, they went back to Bali village in February 2022, with the art direction, production, direction and photography teams arriving three days before everyone else, followed by the technical crew and production equipment. 

“After a long preparation period, we went to the location having created the film in our minds and on the table,” Haste tells TRT World.

Haste and the crew tried to find the child actors from casting agencies in Istanbul, but in the end went with Elif Eylul Yesilyurt (Ayse), who they scouted for in a school. 

For the character named Ismail, they went with Baran Salman, who had acted in “Naftalin”, an earlier film produced by Haste and directed by Dasbilek, but they had still not found a boy to play Yusuf in the film.

Yusuf is a mischievous boy who disrupts class by shooting tiny paper balls out of a ballpoint pen he has emptied. His behaviour lands him in hot water with the teacher, Ishak.

“We continued our search for the Yusuf character in Kibriscik municipality school. I had decided upon Muhammed Mayda at first sight. He wasn’t too enthusiastic at first, but he said he would do it,” Haste explains. 

“We visited his home, played together – I tried to be his friend. Afterwards he came up with such a stellar performance; as if he had been a pro for years.”

According to Haste, as far as the main cast went, only Muhammed was from the municipality, and the other two kids were from Istanbul. As for the supporting cast, they “performed with the same quality for each take – for them it was an altogether different experience.”

Haste tells TRT World that the children had questions in their minds when they first arrived on set, “but on the last day, as they were leaving on the shuttle, they were all crying because the shoot was over.”

Questioning ideas of innocence and guilt

Haste, in an emailed interview with TRT World, says that the film questions the ideas of innocence and guilt, and how they are dealt with, in the search for a young female student who goes missing. 

“We watch the film from the perspective of a teacher who is working in a remote village in Anatolia, featuring a school whose walls are darkened with moisture and a janitor and a handful of students who are trying to exist in this school. Their fates evolve in a different direction when a girl from the classroom doesn’t show up to class.”

Haste also mentions violence that emerges as a reaction to an outburst from a student, the regret it brings, and sounds of dynamite being set off at a nearby quarry that won’t allow restitution.

“Just as a wall rotten with moisture in its core won’t be fixed with a new coat of paint,” he writes, “the deeply-rooted dark side of people, the evil side, won’t be easily fixed – that’s what Moisture is about.”

‘Films funded themselves”

Haste says his first directing experience was with the short film, “Hasat Zamani”. 

He says they shot it without applying for any funds, on their own. 

“With the festival income from that film, we shot “Naftalin” (2018) which Furkan directed and I produced.” Naftalin was followed by “Bir Nehir Kiyisinda” (2020), directed by Furkan, supported by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, which was funded by Naftalin’s festival income. 

He adds that until “Bir Nehir Kiyisinda” they hadn’t applied for funding – ”I can say that the films funded themselves.”

“Among our films,” Haste notes, “‘Rutubet (Moisture)’ is the longest set length, busy pre-production, a big cast and crew and took place out of town.” 

Engin Cebiroglu, “who always had a magical touch on our films” was co-producer, as well as Ramazan Kilic, “at all stages of the filmmaking process”.

The short film also received support from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. Haste says they applied to TRT 12 Punto afterwards, and received production support.

‘First time in 23 years’

Haste says “screening at a distinguished festival seals a film’s fate”, pointing out that it has been 23 years since a short film from Türkiye has competed in the Venice Film Festival (“Dayim” by Tayfun Pirselimoglu, did so in 1999), he expresses his desire for “Rutubet” to win an award.

“We made this film with the utmost care and attention to detail at all stages of production. Now it is up to the festival jury,” he tells TRT World, saying he is overjoyed that the film has made it so far.

Haste says the film has been invited to numerous important film festivals who said they would like to watch and evaluate ‘Rutubet’. 

“We will come up with a distribution strategy to screen the film at international festivals that have produced Oscar-winning material, working on country and continental premieres. We believe we will get long-lasting and positive results from our approach,” he concludes.

THUMBNAIL IMAGE: Focusing on a face off between Yusuf and Ishak, Gokhan Yeter has designed the poster for Rutubet (Moisture).

HEADLINE IMAGE: "Rutubet (Moisture)", a short film directed by Turan Haste and written and produced by Muhammed Furkan Dasbilek, will be competing at Venice Film Festival's Orizzonti (Horizons) section.