How Far Can We Go

My childhood was spent in my grandmother's village in summers and in Van in winters. I used to love the village, but what really gave me pleasure was the amazing 3-hour journey we took from the city to the village. In 2016, when I turned 18, the desire to travel that I couldn't suppress found its first response in Macedonia, where I flew by finding a cheap flight ticket. It was my first trip, but it didn't take long for me to feel like an Earthling. A few hours after I landed in Skopje, a musical sound that caressed my ear from afar attracted me and I got excited as I got closer. A group of street musicians were singing, and the crowd listening to them was accompanying them, looking at the papers on which the lyrics were written. I immediately joined them. After the songs were sung and the crowd had dispersed, I was still there and taking pictures of the group. Fermin came and got to know me briefly, then invited me to the concert they were going to give in the evening. I continued my Macedonian trip by joining that group. I taught them Kurdish and Turkish songs and they had practiced enough to sing at the concert the next day. The name of this music group, which was traveling with caravans only by making music, was Warga Sound.
There I met Fermin, one of the main characters of the documentary, and we got along very well in a short time. When I invited him to Istanbul for the first time, he and his girlfriend Laura came Laura’s van. After staying in Istanbul for a while and making a road plan, we set out and toured almost all of Turkey. This lifestyle, which I am not accustomed to, has opened doors for me that I cannot describe. In the first 6 months of our trip, I just made observations and tried to get used to this lifestyle because it was impossible for me to shoot a movie without getting used to it. Or should I say, it would go against my philosophy of cinema. At the end of 6 months, I left them and locked myself in my house and watched almost all fictional or documentary travel, road and music films. During this process, we often talked about where and how I could join them.
Finally I was ready and I joined them in Fethiye and soon we were on our way. From 2016 until 2021, when I started shooting the film, I traveled to many countries and met hundreds of people, but the people to whom I said "yes, I want to film this way of life and show it to people" were Fermin and Laura. While shooting the movie, I also became a member of the family. Our days were shaped within a certain framework. We started the day with yoga, practiced music before breakfast and offered our thanks to Mother Nature and went to breakfast. I had a lot of camera experience due to the department I studied and the jobs I worked, but Fermin, who was interested in cinema during his university life, helped me a lot in the shootings and allowed me to convey some situations with his own eyes. It allowed me to add second and third aesthetic perspectives to the film. Thus, I had the chance to convey these through their eyes.
On this journey that I recorded for more than 8 months, all the stories we experienced combined with the fascinating visuals of the roads and the incredible taste of universal music offer us much more than a conventional road movie. I shot this movie as an expression of my belief that you can travel the world without any money or worry about money and accompany dozens of cultures. I think the film will guide everyone who watches it and reveal to them the passion for travel that is hidden somewhere inside themselves.