Once upon a time in İstanbul
Once Upon a Time in İstanbul (Bir Zamanlar İstanbul), (2009) explores a city from another vantage point, playing with ideas of loss and nostalgia. The film is constructed of extracts of found 16mm film, which depict the anonymous amateur filmmaker’s view of everyday life in Istanbul in the 1970s. It is interspersed with romantic dialogue and lyrics from a popular Turkish melodrama of the same era, the Yeşilçam film Feride (1971), contrasting the commonplace and dramatic.