Orhan Eskikoy and Özgür Dogan, the makers of Joris Ivens Competition entry
On The Way to School, will be arriving at the premiere in the Tuschinski On Tuesday in a ‘Turkish school bus’. The vehicle in question is actually a 1950s Dutch civil defence bus, transformed for the occasion into an ‘On the Way to School’ school bus.
A Dutch/Turkish co-production supported by the Jan Vrijman Fund,
On The Way to School follows the trials and tribulations of a Turkish primary school teacher sent to a remote area of Turkish Kurdistan to teach Kurdish children, who don’t speak Turkish.
“The idea for this film originally came about through an old friend of mine, who was a teacher”, Orhan – also credited for screenplay, photography and editing – says. “He taught in an area of Kurdistan where the children speak Kurdish rather than Turkish. This was interesting to us, as Özgür has a Kurdish background and so experienced the same thing from the child’s viewpoint.” “Although where I grew up, they handled the situation a bit better”, Özgür (also credited for sound and production) interjects. “In the film, we wanted to show both sides of the problem”, says Orhan, “and we wanted to understand how it works, in the classroom: what are the conflicts? There are different layers to the film – it is also a political story, but we didn’t want that to dominate. We prefer to use a more subtle, cinematic style to present the problems of the ‘assimiliation’ of these Kurdish children. We also decided to film in an area that was not too affected by the war [between the Turkish army and separatist guerrillas]. This meant we could film in peace.”
“We had researched this area before”, Özgür adds. “We went there and interviewed lots of teachers before finding one we liked for the film. We then followed him throughout the entire school year. The children didn’t seem to be affected by us filming at all. All their attention was focussed on the teacher. It was very crowded in the classroom, after a while they hardly noticed us at all.” “Also, these children don’t really know about being filmed or photographed”, says Orhan, “so they behaved naturally.”
“We hope to return and show them the film in the spring”, adds Özgür. “Also, we would especially like to express our gratitude to Taco Ruighaver of Movies that Matter, and our mentor at the Greenhouse Project, [Dutch documentary maker] John Appel.”
Mark Baker