Forum
Nuri Bilge Ceylan Workshop & Masterclass: A Quest for Philosophy Behind Images
Turkish director and screenwriter Nuri Bilge Ceylan was born in Istanbul, Turkey, and spent his childhood in the village of Yenice. He had a liking for photography at the age of 15. After graduating from the Department of Electrical Engineering at Boğaziçi University, he began to study cinema at Mimar Sinan University.
Nuri Bilge Ceylan
He prefers to use long takes to record people and things in a natural setting. Behind the silent or noisy scenes there are profound cultural connotations. His stories are anchored in Turkey, where the bits and pieces of this land stretching from the Anatolian Plateau to the Bosporus Strait are placed into the frame.
Nuri Bilge Ceylan at the shooting site
Ceylan’s cinematic language is defined by a rich personality. The effects of his shots are always quiet and far-reaching, showing trajectories over the life course and life tension. The dialogues in his films are wonderfully poetic, accurately expressing his philosophical thoughts.
Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Perhaps it is this image style perfectly blending literary and film-look that makes Ceylan gain an unbeatable track record at the Festival de Cannes. Since his first short film Cocoon (1995) was nominated for the Short Film Palme d'Or at the 48th Festival de Cannes, Ceylan has won several awards at this film festival, including the Golden Palm in the Competition section, Best Director, the Jury Prize, the FIPRESCI Prize, for his outputs Distant, Three Monkeys, Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, and Winter Sleep.
Nuri Bilge Ceylan at the shooting site
At one of this year’s BJIFF workshops & masterclasses, Turkish treasure Nuri Bilge Ceylan will provide a breakdown of his unique audio-visual language style, and analyze the profound cultural and historical background in his films.
At the same time, Prof. Dai Jinhua will be invited as a panelist for this workshop & masterclass.
Panelist Dai Jinhua
Dai Jinhua, professor at the Department of Chinese Language and Literature, Peking University, Director of the Center for Film and Cultural Research Center, and doctoral supervisor, is mainly engaged in the studies on film, gender, and culture. She is the author of Invisible Writing: A Study of Chinese Culture in the 1990s, Film Criticism, A Boat of Wading Through: Chinese Women’s Writing and Women's Culture in the New Era, In the Mist: Chinese Film Culture 1978-1988, Mirror and Myth: Eighteen Cases of Intensive Film Reading, and others.
The Workshop & Masterclass is themed on “Portraits of the Mind and Scratches over the Century”, delving into the ideas and stories behind the artistic creation of masters.
Nuri Bilge Ceylan Workshop & Masterclass
Theme: Portraits of the Mind and Scratches over the Century
Time: 4:00PM-5:30PM, April 27
Panelist: Dai Jinhua
Venue: Grand Ballroom, Beijing Yanqi Lake International Convention & Exhibition Center
