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Drama - Comedy
SOMERSAULT IN COFFIN
Tabut (Coffin) is a small place, confining a person only to his own dimensions. Istanbul, as the most cosmopolitan city in Turkey, especially famous with its striking contrasts, encircles diverse lifestyles, extremely rich and dirt poor.
In this harsh atmosphere, people are built with surprising skills to balance everything around their lives, as well as with wild stubbornness to refuse to do the “right thing” and totally let go of themselves.
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Drama - Thriller
ELEPHANTS AND GRASS
Elephants and Grass is made up of six seemingly independent stories that are woven together into one. In this film, we find six characters brought together by a series of coincidences. One of these characters is Havva, a track and field athlete in her early twenties. Havva is getting ready to run in the Eurasia Marathon. Not only does she want to advance her athletic career, but she is also attracted by the race’s sizeable cash prize. She is trying to find money to cure her brother, who was injured during his military service in the south eastern part of Turkey, a region which has been afflicted by civil war for over 20 years. In the end, the only help she finds is from a five star hotel in İstanbul. The hotel’s modest offer is only food and to compansate them she agrees to wear their logo, as well that of the hotel’s casino, at her races.
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Drama
MUD
I love creating scripts with characters that allow me to use black humor. I should mention that I generally enjoy describing tragic characters who are buried in a more or less humorous situation. Among my characters, there are many who share the same traits: they are mostly lonely, helpless people who suffer, but who live it without compromising their pride and personality. However, these people do not hesitate to exceed the limits given to them. I prefer to wander the region between tragedy and comedy while creating dramatic conflict using these characters. I think that thanks to the comedy element, I have the opportunity to convey tragic events to the audience with a light tone.
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Documentary
PARALLEL TRIPS
A documentary about the stories of people living in Northern Cyprus in 1974
FIRST PART
Balıkesir Village:
Atlılar, Muratağa, Sandallar Villages:
SECOND PART:
Story of Poetry:
The Story of Panayota:
Saim’s Story:
Michalis’s Story:
Salih’s Story: -
Drama - Historical
WAITING FOR HEAVEN
One of the aims of the project; It can be summarized as conveying the traditional Ottoman culture and history to the screen by satisfying the feelings and thoughts of the audience within the framework of an immersive adventure. While trying to translate Ottoman miniature art into the language of cinema, we tried not to ignore the expression possibilities of contemporary cinema. Similarly, we tried to use the data of Western painting art and Eastern miniature art together in the film. The topic itself supported our effort.
Nakkaş Eflatun, the hero of Waiting for Paradise, is equipped with new and enriching information about the relationship between miniature art and Western-style painting after his adventurous journey. -
Thriller - Drama
DOT
If morality only deals with consequences; The result may arise that even a person who does everything in his power for his purpose can sometimes do it wrong. But let’s see that if morality turns only to the good and bad of our actions, without taking into account the consequences; Yet another result may occur that may disturb some of us. It can be expressed as follows. How can our actions ultimately not matter?
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Drama
SHADOWS AND FACES
The story of the film is based on the events of two families, Greek and Turkish, living in a remote village of Cyprus in 1963. Karagöz supporters Salih and his daughter Ruhsar were banned from immigration as a result of the attack of the Greek police and took shelter in their relatives Veli’s village. Karagöz player Salih gets lost on the way from this village to the city. Her daughter had to live with her uncle Veli. Veli, who is the leader of the Turks in the village, is aware that in the event of a conflict in the village where they live as a minority, they will be crushed by the Greeks who have the superiority of numbers and power. Therefore, he states to his Greek neighbor Anna and the other Greeks that they do not want to be involved in violence.
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Drama
CYCLE
This film explores the strange, funny, and at times tragic world of shepherds struggling to learn or teach where they belong, torn between their beliefs and the modern world. The film; His use of fiction and fantastic elements with his documentary style aims to bring a different approach to cinema. Finally, it will be useful to add a point about historical and cultural resources to my words. I think Devir is a film that continues the tendency of the films I have made before to benefit from tradition, this time in a different way and in a frame.
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Drama
BALIK
The fish project is about the abuse of nature and the harm of human beings. Because, as of now, I think one of the most important problems (perhaps the first one) facing human beings is that they do not achieve a sustainable balance in relation to nature. However, it should be noted that while making this film, we are also trying to create a movie that will please the audience, so that it will give the audience pleasure.
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Drama - Thriller
DREAM
The concepts of repetition and variation have been the two categories that we have used at various levels of the film in order to concrete the issue of continuing by changing with tradition. Let’s give an example. Depending on the “continuing by changing” problematic, which is one of the main issues that the film tries to discuss, four different actors play the leading female character throughout the film. These women, who have different appearances of the same character, react differently to similar events in accordance with the dramatic structure in the film.
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Drama
FLASHDRIVE
Flashdrive tells the story of the ongoing war despite the loss of more than half a million people in Syria. The heroes of the story set out from a real event, get rid of deep contradictions and step into their future full of tension and unknowns. What is left for us is to sit on our seats and watch this human story with a fresh look.
YEAR
FILM
DOCUMENTARIES
BOOK
Derviş Zaim
W R I T E R / D I R E C T O R / P R O D U C E R
Derviş Zaim was born in Limassol, Cyprus in 1964. He graduated from Boğaziçi University (Istanbul) with a business degree and then from Warwick University (UK) with an MA in cultural studies. He later went on to earn a Doctor of Arts degree in Cinema from Maltepe University (Istanbul).
He has directed ten fiction films and two documentaries to date. Zaim also writes and produces his films. He is the author of two novels: the 1992 Yunus Nadi award-winning ‘Ares in Wonderland’, and ‘Vision’ (2019). His films have screened at many national and international festivals and won awards. Based in Istanbul, Zaim currently lectures on filmmaking at Maltepe and Ankara Bilim Universities.
Filmography:
2023 Tavuri
2020 Flaşbellek (Flashdrive)
2016 Rüya (Dream)
2014 Balık (Fish)
2012 Devir (Cycle)
2010 Gölgeler ve Suretler (Shadows and Faces)
2009 Nokta (Dot)
2006 Cenneti Beklerken (Waiting For Heaven)
2003 Paralel Yolculuklar (Parallel Trips- codirector, documentary)
2003 Çamur (Mud)
2000 Filler ve Çimen (Elephants and Grass)
1996 Tabutta Rövaşata (Somersault In A Coffin)