The Sun In My Shadow

I haven't slept well for months to make this film, but I hope everyone who watches it sleeps well. As much as the depression, pessimism, and nihilism I carried in my last years, the more I wanted to make something that would give light, even if temporarily, in the journey of life. And this film came at a really special and enlightening period in my life. I wrote and directed this film, "Nur", after a long search inside and outside of myself for the spiritual life meaning, as I met several people who struggled with dark thoughts, I also met many lively and inspirational people, this finally inspired me to create this film with these light-hearted characters, I hope that creating this film will help me keep the light inside me as I hope it will also help and inspire others, and help me bear the pain I experienced in my twenties as well. I also wanted to tell through my film that there are many other stories in the world and people living in different and diverse ways, as well as my interest in displaying visual beauty. I was inspired by the work of Sedat, Iris, and the Dervish Alper.
I came up with the idea after a long search on the internet then I found Iris and Sedat!
A Dutchman and a Turk walk this route for 40 days and write a detailed book with names of areas, pictures, hostels, shrines, numbers of a kind and friendly people, and sites for many of Sufi trail friends. Isn't that inspiring?!
"Then I said everything. What can I say after 'The Turin Horse'? I spoke of death. I have nothing to add."
Interview - Bella Tarr: I'm done with the cinema
25-03-2020 | 17:25 Source: "An-Nahar"
Hovik Habashian
Directors usually make their own films that mention dying late, when their careers are about to end, but I started my first film by somehow addressing the biography of death, "The Death of Rumi" in an attempt to break free from my fear, and I wanted to talk about death to reconcile with him, not my death, but the death of the others I love and fear losing them, I wanted to break free from this inherent feeling so that I could then make films talk about life.
This happened in two places in particular, in the movie when I tried to question and provoke Iris to tell me, through questions, conversations, and correspondence spanning months with her, until she finally said one sentence, that "she heard people talking about him -Rumi- as if he was alive before they knew he was dead", and when I asked Alper about the night of the bridegroom, he said that Rumi said: "Do not be sad after me".
It was a graduation project, and because I was very late in graduating from the university for many reasons, including the Rafah crossing, which is located between my city Gaza and Egypt, where I was stuck for about two years and was unable to return to Istanbul to complete my studies, until after time and suffering, my study in college was delayed due to physiological and financial reasons also. That's why I decided to try something more than a graduation project.
I faced many challenges, I am a Palestinian foreigner in Turkey, the team I formed is diverse from several countries, from Libya, Morocco, Lebanon, Palestine, and Turkey! Everyone in the team comes from a different background, we worked in very difficult circumstances, filming was postponed more than once due to covid situation, and the cold weather. We traveled a lot with photographic equipment and traveled on a daily basis. We filmed in more than thirty locations. Filming lasted for 11 days.
We stayed every night in a different city, it was in February and the weather was very cold, and we had a limited budget. There was a theoretical preparation for the film and for the shooting that lasted for months. I talked for hours over the course of two months with the composer Nour, who lives in the town of Mevlana Rumi Konya, to come up with this universal music and song. I am from Palestine. Inside my head, there is a lot of ideas. I love to travel and I do not have a passport. With art, I complete my incomplete life.