Staging a COUP – 1999

I figured that if we were going to spend months in front of computers editing the film, we didn’t need an expensive apartment in New… Read More »Editing and releasing COUP in America

Just before we left, we did a shoot with the people who participated in the 1962 failed coup attempt. We had already interviewed the head… Read More »Brave leaders of the coup that failed

When we got back to Istanbul, Elif’s grandfather died. He was 86 and could remember in his youth, bowing to the Ottoman Pa?a. He fell… Read More »A military funeral

I rejoined the crew for the rest of the Ankara shoot. We filmed Suphi Gursoytrak, former member of the National Unity Committee. He sounded generally… Read More »Redacted

The cameramen were starting to drive me crazy. At first their goofball routine was cute; although they fried the power supply, it was fun trying… Read More »Ahmet Taner Kislali’s last interview

We interviewed the columnist Raif Ertem, who’d also spent time in prison, but for his pen and not for his sword. He told us tales… Read More »Cases of the missing Turks

The next speaker we filmed was Coskun Kirca, the former Minister of Foreign Affairs. He had a cat, a pug dog, and a tasteful old… Read More »Natural born killers

On December 18th, we filmed our first interview. The boom microphone immediately died, which meant that we had to rely solely on the lavalier clip… Read More »Muhsin Batur, the meditating General

Today Elif and I went to the court of Dilek’s boyfriend Cos, who’s a judge. We got to sit in on one case, involving a… Read More »Adventures in Turkish freedom of speech

As much as I miss the island, living with Elif’s mother has its rewards. Although staying for two nights at my own parents’ house can… Read More »I’m going to be a pimp!