Expecting a Grain of Sand

This documentary is an autobiographical work which is currently being carried out with the perspective of two women filmmakers. Director Aslı Akdağ aims to convey her inner world and experiences with a subjective viewpoint through narrating her personal processes of pregnancy and post-partum. Whereas Banu Sıvacı, the assisstant to director, with regard to the need for an objective touch, provides the means to introduce the protagonist and the side characters from an external point for the parts where the protagonist interacts with the outer world, where there are conversations held in the household and certain types of transitions take place within the family.

The goal in shooting this documentary with women filmmakers derived from the wish to approach this process, which is significant in terms of womanhood and does not find so much of a place in cinema, as two different women who lead their lives in this country. Both women possess a sort of rebellious stance against the inequalities they experience in their personal lives and they do feel that it is a necessity to carry out works on the lives of women for the sake of the manifestation of justice. What made these two filmmakers get to know each other was also a women filmmakers’ collective.

With Banu Sıvacı’s first film, Güvercin, dealing with a fictional story that focuses on characters; it is a decent reference for the director’s success in reflecting the inner worlds of characters. Likewise, Aslı Akdağ’s first feature-length film she produced, Genç Pehlivanlar’s being a docudrama where the characters go through a transition with puberty as preparing for competitions and showing the rivalry among friends, required a similar sincere narration.

As for the subjective narration, i.e. shootings with a cell phone, we witness deep conversations with the family members and internal feuds with regard to the past. In the scenes where the camera functions as a third eye among the family members and in the streets with our protagonist, it is aimed for the audience feel not like an outsider but like a friend who’s included in family secrets or someone from the family. Therefore two women filmmakers' being close friends helped the Project to be an intimate one as it was easier to capture emotional, real moments.

Our camera tracks everything like a hidden one and accompanies our character in the most natural aspects of a daily life. Through telephone conversations made after the decision to give birth and raise the baby alone, criticism that comes with the decision, changes in the business life and showing the viewpoint of the society, and with the scenes where the protagonist gets out of her daily life and take to the streets, questioning how ‘free’ we are in making such decisions; the chance to delve into the inner world of the protagonist emerges with close shots.