Inan Temelkuran Turkish filmmaker Inan Temelkuran was born in Izmir in 1976. He studied film making in Spain after he recieved his degree in law in Ankara. He is the director, writer and producer of the award-winning films Made in Europe and Bornova Bornova, both of which are part of Filmpot catalog.

Filmpot’s İlker Cengiz recently sat down with him in Istanbul and talked about many things over the course of an hour. This is Part 1 of our interview.

Filmpot: You studied law, and then you moved to Spain and became a filmmaker. Can you tell us about the process?

Inan Temelkuran: I always wanted to be a filmmaker, since I was 13. There were only 3 film schools and not enough jobs for graduates.  And my parents wanted me to study a “real major” first, and then do whatever I wanted. My father is a lawyer so I studied law. After graduating from law school in Ankara, I moved to Spain on a research scholarship to study “Franco era popular Spanish films”. After 9 months, I came back to Turkey and moved back to Spain this time to study filmmaking in TAI film school (Workshop of Scenery Arts). It is the first film school of Spain and professors were quite famous. That’s where I studied film making.

FP: What was the impact of studying filmmaking in Spain?

IT: Where you live affects even the way you would take a picture of your friend. One should take care of photography in a way that it adds to the story, not just to make it beautiful. Also, the discipline in TAI school meant we had to find ways to make films with zero-budget. So you had to be creative, fast and organized. Professors had their own aesthetic way of seeing the world. And that leaves a stigma on you.

FP: How could you make a film with zero-budget?

IT: With volunteers. If you get a camera from a friend, sound equipment from another friend, and find actors, you are practically done. These are the three basic things. You can make a movie as long as you have actors, camera and sound equipment.

If you want to make a believable movie, you need to create place and time. So you find the most representative place and show it in a way that it creates a space. For example, if I show thrown-away pants on a chair, with a dirty picture on the wall, dirty floor and sound from a squeaky bed those will give you the impression of a hooker and a man. I just showed four items, and it created the time and the space. You don’t need a lot of money to do that. You need to take it in an intelligent way. And find most representative things of what you want to tell according to the feeling you want to pass to the audience.

FP: How did you make Made in Europe with zero-budget in 4 different locations?

IT: I had friends in all cities and they helped me. Getting help from volunteers and friends, staying at cheap places, using cheap things were the keys. I wasn’t paying the actors. They wanted to join because they wanted to become part of an interesting movie. And their bonus was travelling to those cities.

Still it required some money because of transportation. I made educational videos for big companies to make enough money to buy plane tickets and food for the actors, and some necessary spending such renting a location when I had to.