Experiencing Interruptions?

IN MY DREAM

Tariq is a city boy aged 8-10. His father dies in a car accident, he suffers from amnesia. His mother is in a coma in the hospital due to the same accident. Because he has no one left, he is sent to the village to his grandparents. Tariq cannot remember his past because of the accident, but he constantly has symbolic dreams that he cannot understand. A donkey hit by a car is found dead in the village. This donkey has a newborn SIPA. Tariq makes a connection between this donkey cub and his own situation. And he makes it his goal to keep him alive.

  • murat çeri
    Director
  • murat çeri
    Writer
  • Filimetre Media
    Producer
  • Nevzat Yılmaz
    Key Cast
    "Ahmet Grandfather"
  • Harun Reha Pakoglu
    Key Cast
    "Tarık"
  • Recep Çavdar
    Key Cast
    "Smart Zeki"
  • Ferda İşil
    Key Cast
    "Grandma"
  • Project Type:
    Feature
  • Runtime:
    1 hour 39 minutes 21 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    January 1, 2021
  • Production Budget:
    100 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    Turkey
  • Country of Filming:
    Turkey
  • Language:
    Turkish
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    2:35
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    No
  • SCANDINAVIAN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
    Helsinki
    Finland
    August 23, 2020
    World Promiyer
    1-Best Cinematography 2-Best Costume Design / Official Selection
  • SAO PAULO INTERNATİONAL FILM FESTIVAL
    Sao Paulo
    October 22, 2020
    Brazilian Promiyer
    New Filmmakers Competition selection
  • GILAK INTERNATIONAL FİLM FESTIVAL
    Gilen
    Iran, Islamic Republic of
    November 5, 2020
    İran
    A-) Best Actor Nominee
  • DHAKA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
    Dhaka
    January 16, 2021
    Bangledeş
    Dhaka Internationail Film Festival Children's Movies Selection
  • ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL, LOS ANGELES Hollywood
    Los Angeles
    November 1, 2020
    Amerika Birleşik Devletleri
    A-) Best Film Nominee
  • SAN JOSÉ Internationail Film Awards
    SAN JOSÉ
    November 19, 2020
    Costa Rica
    Official Selection
  • Jogja- NETPAC ASİAN FİLM FESTİVAL
    Yogyakarta
    Indonesia
    November 25, 2020
    Endonezya
    Official Selection
  • 74th SALERNO INTERNACIONAİL CINEMA FESTIVAL
    Salerno
    Italy
    November 30, 2020
    İtalya
    Official Selection
  • BANGKOKTHAİ INTERNATİONAİL FİLM FESTİVAL
    Bangkok
    October 22, 2020
    Tayland
    A-) Best Cinematography (BANGIFF)
  • International Moving Film Festival

    Iran, Islamic Republic of
    December 28, 2020
    Official Selection Best Film Nominee
  • Sofya Menar Film Festival
    Sofya
    Bulgaria
    January 14, 2021
    Bulgaria
    Official Selection
  • Budapest Independet Film Festival
    Budapest
    Hungary
    Hungary
    Best Film Nominee
  • Malta Film Festival

    Malta
    January 8, 2021
    Malta
    Official Selection
  • Amsterdam World International Film Festival
    Amsterdam
    Netherlands
    December 6, 2020
    Netherlands
    Official Selection
  • IBIZACINEFEST-Ibiza International Independent Film Festival
    Ibiza
    Spain
    February 26, 2021
    Spain
    Official Selection
  • Chennai International Film Festival

    India
    January 18, 2021
    World Cinema Non competitive section
  • Top Indie Film Awards
    Tokyo
    Japan
    January 31, 2021
    A-) Best Sound Award
  • 50th Roshd Film Festival
    Tahran
    Iran, Islamic Republic of
    February 17, 2021
    Official Selection
  • Bucharest Film Awards
    Bucharest
    Romania
    February 25, 2021
    Official Selection
  • SENSUS Film Festival
    Petersburg
    Russian Federation
    March 11, 2021
    Russian Federation
    A-) Best Feature Film
  • 30th Cineguest Film & VR Festival
    St.San Jose,
    March 20, 2021
    finalist
  • Nepal International Film Festival
    Katmandu
    Nepal
    May 6, 2021
    World Panorama / A-) IFFS Don Quixote Award for the Best Feature Film
  • Kinofestival ‘Light Of The World’
    Rybinsk, Yaroslavskaya
    Russian Federation
    June 2, 2021
    A-) Best Foreign Feature Film B-) Best Foreign Feature Film Cinematography Award
  • Frankfurt Turkisches Film Festival
    Frankfurt
    Germany
    June 20, 2021
    Germany
    Official Selection
  • 11th Dada Saheb Phalke Film Festival-21
    New Delhi
    India
    April 30, 2021
    New Delhi
    A-) Best Supporting Actor
  • 16th Busan International Kids and Youth Film Festival
    Busan
    Korea, Republic of
    July 2, 2021
    Korea, Republic of
    Official Selection
  • Durban International Film Festival
    Durban
    South Africa
    July 22, 2021
    South Africa
    Official Selection
  • L’Europe Autour de l’Europe
    Paris
    France
    November 17, 2021
    France
    Official Selection
  • 31th International Film Forum "Golden Knight"
    Moscow
    Russian Federation
    September 6, 2021
    Official Selection
  • 19th Ischia Film Festival
    Ischia
    Italy
    June 26, 2021
    Scenarios - Out of competition section
  • 5th European International Film Festival
    St.Petersburg
    Russian Federation
    October 1, 2021
    Finalist
  • 29th Chichester International Film Festival
    Chichester
    United Kingdom
    August 12, 2021
    UK Premiere
    Official Selection
  • 14th Cine Del Mar
    Maldonado
    Uruguay
    July 7, 2021
    Uruguay Premiere
    Official Selection
  • 4th First Hermetic International Film Festival (FHIFF)
    Venice
    Italy
    August 7, 2021
    Official Selection
  • 12th Santander International Film Festival (PINKNIC)
    Santander
    Spain
    August 10, 2021
    Official Selection
  • 11th Social World Film Festival (Europeo del Cinema Giovane e indipendente - Young Film Market)
    Napoli
    Italy
    July 11, 2021
    Official Selection
  • 27th Nanch International Film Festival
    Nanch
    France
    August 27, 2021
    France Premiere
    Official Selection
  • 4th Roma Indepndent Cinema Festival
    Roma
    Italy
    August 27, 2021
    Finalist
  • 9th DYTIATKO International Children’s Media Festival
    Kharkivska
    Ukraine
    September 6, 2021
    Official Selection
  • 10th International Filmmaker Festival of New York
    New York
    United States
    May 21, 2021
    A-) Best Cinematography
  • 8th Malatya International Film Festival
    Malatya
    Turkey
    November 6, 2018
    (Platform Section 1st TRT (Turkey Radio and Television Corporation) pre-purchase support award)
Director Biography - murat çeri

MURAT ÇERİ

Born in Bolu/Gerede in 1980. He spent his childhood in his village in a world of fantasy and fairy tales. He completed his primary and secondary education in Ankara. In 2000, he won the Turkology Department of Istanbul University and came to Istanbul, the city of legends and dreams. He enrolled in the cinema department of BSF (Academy of Science and Arts and Philosophy), which opened in Taksim. He studied here for two years.IN MY DREAM won TRT's purchase support as the winner of Malatya Film Festival. In 2020, the festivals began to circulate. It was shown in 25 different countries and won awards. He is preparing to shoot his second movie called 'See You Tomorrow' in 2021.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

I HAD A DREAM
by
MURAT ÇERİ

DIRECTOR’S NOTE

The main character of this film is an eight-year-old boy named Tarik. Tarik has just survived a terrible car accident, which caused the death of his father and left his mother in a coma. Luckily, Tarik has no memory of the accident, or even of his past life. Fragments of his past remain only in Tarik’s dream. This is why the film is called “I Had a Dream”.
The main idea of this film is a question, famously asked by the author Leo Tolstoy: “By what does a human live?”
Tarik had a great life in the city, but I took it away from him. I took away his home, his father, his mother, and even his memories. I took everything away from him, and pushed him into the unknown. I placed him in an unfamiliar world, making him live in a small village. I wanted to find out: “How will this boy live?”
The film begins with a dream, and a story. Looking into the reflections of the lake, Ahmet tells his grandson Tarik the parable of the vicious monster and the young hero Yusuf. The grandfather’s voice tells us the importance of the messages hidden deep inside the story. We know that the dream is true.
The village has its customs and traditions. Life depends on continuity, and nothing new is welcomed or found acceptable. Tarik is new and the village boys don’t welcome him. Children are sincere in both conflict and friendship. Children are also cruel, especially towards each other. Tarik and some village boys fight.
Tarik and his grandparents visit a neighbor whose child was involved in the fight. The neighbor makes them listen to a recording of a story called “The Victories of Ali”. The boys want to play this story, but they cannot agree who will play Ali, so they fight again. In the words of the great poet Sezai Karakoç: “Children at play cannot share the role of Ali. Ali, the hero of the place of the rising sun. Every child wants to be Ali.” So, Tarik fights to be the hero of the play. And because he fights, the village boys decide to let him prove his courage. The first trial they give him is to touch a huge, scary tree called The Snake’s Pine. The village kids believe that a big snake lives in this tree. The second trial is to walk slowly on a path through the cemetery, and never run.
Tarik will fail if he doesn’t touch the tree, or if he starts running through the cemetery, out of fear or for any other reason. Tarik fails both trials. Nevertheless, since Tarik walks right up to the tree and runs through the cemetery without wetting his pants, they accept him as the hero.
Tarik settles in to village life, thanks mainly to his grandfather Ahmet. While Tarik’s grandmother makes his life comfortable, Grandpa gives him responsibilities. Ahmet always brings his sheep to the pasture in the early morning. Tarik wants to help, and asks Grandpa to let him join. Ahmet accepts Tarik’s offer on one condition. Tarik has to get up early in the morning, and he has to do it all by himself. Next morning, Grandpa makes so much noise that Tarik inevitably wakes up.
When they are in the fields, Grandpa shares his knowledge of nature. He teaches Tarik the lessons of the voice of nature, and tells him how we have to stop and listen. But no one has the time to listen nowadays. So, no one understands what nature is saying...
Everything seems to be going well. Tarik plays with the other boys of his age, except for the boy who starts studying the Quran. The villagers are so faithful that they abide by Imam Ali’s instruction, and tell their children not to play with the boy who is memorizing the Quran. Their fathers tell them that the boy is learning the Quran, which makes him just as sacred as the pages of the Quran. Out of respect for the Quran, they can no longer wrestle with him. The poor boy is left alone, while Tarik and his friends have fun.
Tarik also befriends a man named Zeki. When he was young, Zeki left the village to work in a factory in the town. While he was there, he lost his heart to a beautiful girl named Sevda, and they were engaged to be married. Then came the terrible earthquake of 17 August 1999. Sevda’s house collapsed, and she was buried. Zeki dug her out and carried her to the hospital in her bed sheet, but Sevda died in his arms. Zeki lost his mind, and returned to the village still clutching Sevda’s bed sheet. He carried the sheet with him everywhere, whispering her name. At first, nobody knew what to do, but then they made a grave for Sevda’s sheet. Whenever Zeki knocks on someone’s door, the villagers feed him. Grandpa tells Tarik that Zeki is harmless.
One day, a donkey is injured by a car. The donkey dies, but it has a three-week-old foal. Everybody says that the foal has no chance of surviving without its mother. That’s life, they say. The men want to slaughter the foal and feed it to the dogs. These are the same men who tell the boys not to wrestle out of respect for the Quran. They are as pragmatic as they are religious. Tarik feels connected to the motherless foal, and begs Grandpa to let him take care of the foal. Zeki promises to help him, and Grandpa agrees.
Zeki and Tarik do everything they can to help the foal to survive, but eventually they fail. The foal suddenly dies. Zeki carries the foal to the cemetery. Zeki finds a space near Sevda’s grave. Zeki and Tarik pray for the foal, and stage a funeral for him.
After the funeral is over, Tarik leaves everything behind and starts to run. Crying uncontrollably, Tarik runs to the woods. Finally, he reaches the tree. It’s the big, scary tree, the home of the giant snake! He has reached the tree called The Snake's Pine, and he touches it. Tarik not only touches the tree. He puts his arms around it, and wails loudly.
Tarik and Zeki are two characters who are both trying to survive. Both are struggling on their own way to hold on to life. “I Had a Dream” is the story of what humans need to survive. The answer is: Love! Perseverance! Hope!
The endeavor to save the motherless foal connects Tarik’s veiled dream to something he can know, sense and feel. Despite failing to save the foal, Tarik recovers his mother.
What inspired me, and where am I, in this story? First of all, I am always one of the children, in every story I tell. In this story, I am most of all Tarik. Tarik is me, trying so hard to keep the foal alive, to allow the foal to survive. This is my story, based on my own childhood in the village. And, as in this film, I was unable to keep the foal alive. I just couldn’t succeed...
By making this film, I will go back and try again. I will do my best to make my foal survive, and though the foal dies again, I will make its memory live. I will succeed at last. I will not give up. My hope will last forever. I hope... and to hope is the best thing in the world. Hope keeps us alive. Hope makes us wake up every day. Hope is what we really need, to go on living!
The script for this film is based on a true story. Keeping a sense of reality is also very important in its production. For the main character, and the other children, we will choose the best child actors we can find. But they should not be trained as actors. What we are looking for is children with great acting talent who also look natural as villagers.
We have been looking carefully for the best locations as well. Considering each and every scene, we have visited places such as Beykoz, Kastamonu, Bingol and Bolu. We have visited all these places, and decided on Seben township in the district of Bolu. We have met with the mayor and decided to do the filming there. We have also found a local donkey farm that can provide a foal, and care for it. To shoot the car accident scene, we have agreed in principle with Holger Gimpel, who is the director of the German TV series “Alarm Für Cobra 11”.
As for the color scale of this film, I am inspired by the paintings of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, the Italian master. The main reason for this is the way Caravaggio’s colors mimic the light of the village lamp. Each house in the village has an oil lamp, and in the light of this lamp, the colors resemble those of Caravaggio’s paintings. These are the colors of the story I want to tell.
To express Tarik’s dream I will use the kind of imagery that can be found in the films of Michelangelo Antonioni, who uses contrast brilliantly and also has traces of the light of Caravaggio’s paintings in his films.
The dreams and stories of Tarik are the stories of you, me, and all children of Anatolia who know the land. The way people react to everything that happens, the way they carry out the rain prayer, the instructions of Ali the Imam, who stops the children from playing with the boy who studies the Quran, this is all a part of the social configuration of the Anatolian village. But the concerns of the characters go far beyond the Anatolian village. Their concerns are universal. The man who wears his jacket inside out during the rain prayer, and turns the palms of his hands not towards the sky but towards the ground, we all know that he is incompetent. The father who carries his son on his shoulders on the first day of religious education, we all know that he is proud.
This film invites everybody, not only to hear the voice of nature and view its magic, but to feel the harmony of village life and connect to our own inner charm. By expressing local values and attitudes to life, and sharing the traditions and customs that make people feel connected, I believe my film tells a universal story. My hope is that everyone who loves walking barefoot in the grass will also love watching “I Had a Dream”.

Respectfully,

Murat Çeri