AZAN

Azan is my first professional movie. During my film studies I worked really hard in order to become able to tell this story in the best audiovisual manner. Because of this Azan is a very important and dear movie to me.
The protagonist is a soldier, who disappears at the Greek-Turkish borders, but the main character of this movie is his mother, who travels up there in order to find him.
When I was young, I lived in a village called Rizia, at Evros, the Greek-Turkish borders for a few years. My father was a military man, so our family atmosphere and the stories I heard as a child, were about the Greek army. The stories that captured my mind were some sinister things that used to happen at that border.
I used to hear about illegal behavior, strange friendships with Turkish soldiers, accidents, people disappearing and soldiers committing suicide. I remember people commenting on these events, but never giving any solution or putting the blame on anybody. I remember my mother worrying about me and my sister during all those endless nights that our father was at work. One of these nights and while we were asleep, we fell victims of a weird robbery inside our house. That was the moment my parents decided to leave this village.
This weird and ugly feeling for that place led me create a story focusing on the disappearance of a soldier and his mother's concern, who is ready to do anything to find her son. I was motivated by the urban legend of the Greek-Turkish borders at Evros, which says that the soldiers declared to have committed suicide, were actually unfortunate victims of illegal behavior occurring at the borders. I show this urban legend through the role of a hunter in my film. Naturally, being deeply affected by the dramatic events of our time, which take place at the borders; the unfortunate immigrants trying to cross the borders, I created a story where even a bleak environment can unite different people and their stories.