Call Of The Day

Director’s

The idea of the movie, Banga Roj came to me when I learned that PKK guerrillas will retreat from the battle out of Öcalan’s call in the Newroz Festival. It is because I wanted to witness that process and record the last guerrillas of a battle which is about to end. I thought this hope of ending a hundred years of war and rebellions through the peace process deserved to be a documentary.
We were both excited and worried by the idea of shooting this journey of 900 km of bird’s eye view and about 3000 km on foot which would start in Blacksea region and end in Kandil, during which tens of cities, hundreds of villages, probably hundreds of mountains, hills and rivers will be passed through. We will try to shoot the journey itself as plain as possible focusing on certain characters. We were not able to reach first three groups of guerrillas who set off from Dersim due to the difficulties of communication and preparations which took much longer.  When we made contact with the guerrillas and arrived at the mountains where they deployed, the retreat process became in abeyance. As a result of the outbreak of political conflicts and reciprocal accusations, it was settled that the last group of guerrillas would stay in Dersim. Our story began at that point.

Expecting a shooting period of three seasons, we started shooting the documentary on 21st of July, 2013 in Dersim. It lasted around a year with intervals.
We panned our cameras to the daily lives and personal narratives of the guerrillas living in the mountains. Some of them recently joined while some others had been there for 25 years. Seeking for an answer to the question why they chose to join the guerrilla forces, we started shooting how they could survive in nature, what they eat and drink and how they lead their daily lives. Especially, we were interested in the difficulties of the women guerrillas, their efforts to cope with the nature and we were particularly curious about how they overcame their fears.

Dersim with it's magnificent mountains, valleys, unique view of nature has giving us a mind blowing opportunities. When we had a chance to show beautiful nature of Dersim in the movie, we tried to see it with the eyes of freedom fighters. Banga Roj become a documentary of mother nature on the objection of freedom fighters moving back. We are planing to present The long chat between guerrillas about the regions mythology, history, traditions, Dersim holocaust in the movie for viewers to have an idea about the region.
In this documentary we were determined to not to do any propaganda, shooting of fighters life as it is without any story bending or direct it in any route.
While I was spending my time with the fighters I realized, that there was completely a different picture behind the government has shown to the people. I decided not to add or remove anything from what I have seen and let the world see it. The state knew its enemy but they didn't want the society to know. I want society to know these people as they see them enemy and they should see the bigger picture and see the real enemy!

Director Cemil Kızıldağ