The Flowers of Suveydiye (short version)
Suveydiye is the ancient name of Samandağ, which means “a dark place” in Turkish. The reason why the people use the name of Suveydiye already is supposed to be its location surrounded by the mountains and facing onto the sea. The ‘flowers’ used in the title of our documentary stand for the ethnicities such as Arab, Armenian, Turkish, Kurdish (Muslim, Alevist, Sunni, Christian, Orthodox, Catholic) having lived together in peace through the history for ages. We address the communication of those people having different nationalities with one another.
This documentary composed of real stories about ethnocentric manners also illuminates the future in terms of sociology.
We set out longing for a world in which nobody’s humiliated out of his or her nationality, language and culture.
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Zafer ÖzgentürkDirector
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Ferzan ÖzyaşarProducer
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Project Title (Original Language):Süveydiye'nin Çiçekleri
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Project Type:Documentary, Other
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Runtime:14 minutes 10 seconds
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Completion Date:May 10, 2015
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Country of Origin:Turkey
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Country of Filming:Turkey
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Language:Arabic, Armenian, German, Kurdish, Turkish
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Shooting Format:Full HD
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Aspect Ratio:16:9
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Film Color:Color
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First-time Filmmaker:No
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Student Project:No
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East Meditteranean Development Agency Short Film Competition
3rd Prize
Zafer Özgentürk, directed and wrote the script of several sociological documentaries and short films focusing on topics such as gender issues and ethnocentrism. Most of his short films were shot as part of the Womanocracy Project funded by the EU. He recently finished a short documentary film about the famous director Yılmaz Güney and the Flowers of Süveydiye, a documentary aiming to get over ethnocentrism in Turkey by creating empathy between different cultures. He is now in the pre-production phase of a documentary on Thalasemia with the Thalasemia Federation of Turkey. In addition to cinematic work, he wrote in several art and culture magazines, directed in local theaters and worked as the general art director of Çukurova Art Workshop.