Entelköy

Sometimes, I just go travelling in Turkey without a specific goal, just to see where I end up. As I did this week. And where did I find myself a few days later? In the village of Entelköy! Never heard of it? You will: the movie ‘Entelköy’ will be released this year, or the beginning of next year – also abroad.

Entelköy is the name of a comedy with a message filmed close to Didim, a West-Turkish coastal town. I twittered a few times that I was in Didim, and then a tweet came in from somebody I didn’t know who asked me if I would be interested in visiting a film set close to Didim. I had no idea what it was about, I was planning to leave the next day so I thanked the tweep for the tip. His reply: ‘It’s not a tip, it’s an invitation’. As it turned out the tweep-with-nickname was rather famous producer Muharrem Gülmez, who was producing Entelköy, latest movie of totally famous director Yüksel Aksu (see pic). I changed my plans. Next day I was picked up from my hotel in Didim and taken to Entelköy!

Entelköy is an abbrevaration of ‘Entelektuël Köy’, or: Intellectuals’ Village. In Turkey, towns are sometimes named in popular language after what’s happening there: Turistköy for a town loaded with tourists, Kaleköy for a town with a castle, etc. So in Entelköy (official film name Efeköy and in real life called Pinarcik), you find intellectuals. At least, that’s how they are referred to by the original inhabitants of the village.

The ‘intellectuals’ are hippies living in a commune, led by a female German environmental activist. The villagers don’t understand their way of living: the intellectuals for example do yoga and they practice organic farming. They plea for a more traditional way of life. They want ayran, a traditional Turkish yoghurt drink, but the villagers only have cola. They want linden tea, the villagers can only provide them with Nescafe. Trouble in Entelköy, until the fight against a thermal power plant planned near the village unites them. Oh, and there are donkey’s too.

I spent two days in Entelköy – my first time ever on a film set. I felt so welcome, everybody was so nice, open, funny, and wow, hard working. I could photograph and film (well, aim my small basic Flip camera), whatever I wanted. Everybody was open for interviews and Muharrem and others showed me around locations. And I tweeted from Entelköy like crazy of course. Now that’s what I call an everybody happy-situation!

I’ll put a short video of these two days online this weekend. At least, that’s the plan. I might sell a story about it. And… it could be I’ll be in the film myself: filming will last almost six more weeks, and since they could use another foreigner as an extra and asked me to do that, I might come back to the set soon. So you only have to do one thing: go to the cinema and see Entelköy!

And by the way: no, I was not paid (or even asked!) to tweet, blog, publish and flip-film in Entelköy. I was only fed there 😉

Update: Sorry, couldn’t manage video yet…