By Miranda Murray<\/p>\n
BERLIN, Feb 14 (Reuters) – Berlin Film Festival marriage drama “Yellow Letters” should serve as a cautionary tale for Western audiences who believe democratic \u200cbacksliding is a distant concern, not a danger that could emerge at \u200chome, said Turkish\u2011German director Ilker Catak.<\/p>\n
The film, which is competing against 21 others for the festival’s top \u200bprize, focuses on what happens to a marriage under extraordinary political pressure, Catak told Reuters.<\/p>\n
In it, Ozgu Namal and Tansu Bicer star as a married actor and playwright who lose their jobs and have to leave behind their comfortable lives after the husband is targeted \u200cby the Turkish state for \u2060posting critical content online.<\/p>\n
“We always thought in the West that we’re immune to that kind of political repression. And now we’re realizing \u2060we’re not,” Catak said, adding it was important to protect democracy.<\/p>\n
“You can lose your job too, if you are stating the wrong political statements.”<\/p>\n
DIRECTOR HOPES FILM SPURS REFLECTION FROM AUDIENCE<\/p>\n
Those \u200bthemes \u200bfound a real-life parallel in Turkey last spring \u200bwith the arrest of Istanbul \u200cmayor Ekrem Imamoglu, President Tayyip Erdogan’s biggest political rival.<\/p>\n
The arrest prompted the largest anti-government protests in a decade and led to mass detentions. The crackdown on the key opposition party has undermined the democratic credentials of EU candidate and NATO member Turkey.<\/p>\n
Catak hoped the film would prompt reflection: “I would wish that people watch my film and they think \u200cabout their own state, their own country.”<\/p>\n
To drive \u200bhome the parallels, viewers are asked to imagine \u200bthat the German cities where the \u200bfilm was shot, Berlin and Hamburg, are Ankara and Istanbul \u200cin Turkey.<\/p>\n
“If we had shot it in \u200bTurkey only, it would \u200bhave been easy to say, ‘OK, that’s a Turkish problem,'” explained Catak.<\/p>\n
“Yellow Letters” is Catak’s second Berlin entry after 2023’s “The Teachers’ Lounge,” which was selected as \u200bGermany’s entry for the Oscar’s \u200cbest international feature film award.<\/p>\n
The festival runs from February 12-22, with the \u200btop Golden Bear prize awarded at the closing ceremony on February 21.<\/p>\n
(Reporting \u200bby Miranda Murray; Editing by Bernadette Baum)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Miranda Murray BERLIN, Feb 14 (Reuters) – Berlin Film Festival marriage drama “Yellow Letters” should serve as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12881,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[112,3146,9825,9826,190,9824,9827,9828,7780],"class_list":{"0":"post-12880","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-berlin","8":"tag-berlin","9":"tag-berlin-film-festival","10":"tag-cautionary-tale","11":"tag-democratic-backsliding","12":"tag-germany","13":"tag-ilker-catak","14":"tag-ozgu-namal","15":"tag-western-audiences","16":"tag-yellow-letters"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12880\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}