SAYFANIN TÜRKÇESİ İÇİN TIKLAYIN / FOR THE PAGE IN TURKISH CLICK HERE

Yukarıdaki videoda Türkçe altyazı için lütfen CC'ye basın. For Turkish subtitles please press CC on the video above.

After a big fight with her mother about her alternative lifestyle and neglecting school, Azra has her phone taken away from her. Threatening her with never returning it, her mother orders her to pull herself together. It is after this fight that we are introduced to Azra, as she sits by the river, cutting her hair short to get rid of her red dyed-tips — a contentious topic between her and her mother. 

Ceren, a worried schoolmate, sees Azra cutting her hair by the river and makes an attempt to introduce herself. Despite Azra’s initial reluctance to open up, Ceren’s attempts at friendship are genuine, leading Azra to lower the walls she built around herself. Ceren is a loner of her own kind but handles herself differently. Azra is intrigued by a certain confidence in her -- she likes how Ceren isn’t bothered by what others think.

Over the course of a week, their friendship silently develops from one side of the river to the other. After an internal battle, Azra finally decides to open up to Ceren, but comes to find that she has stopped coming to the river. Azra is convinced that she has lost the opportunity at this friendship forever because she couldn’t bring herself take the step sooner. Could she have lost Ceren forever?

Azra (16): Our main character Azra is a high-schooler who hides her shyness with a cold façade. Following an older sister who has done well in school as per their mother’s wishes, Azra knows that she will never be able to live up to the same standard. With a passion for music and alternative fashion, she has an urgent need to distinguish herself from both familial and societal expectations. Not fitting in at school or at home, Azra has alienated herself from everyone.

Ceren (16): Neither popular nor bullied, but definitely a loner, Ceren has an aura of self-acceptance around her. She doesn’t have many friends she connects with but has made peace with it and fueled her energy into the books she reads. Her feeling of camaraderie and empathy is what draws her to Azra as she makes attempts to become friends.

Büşra (21): As the first born daughter of the family, Büşra has always done everything in a hard-working and proper manner. Raised by a single working mother, Büşra had to take on the role of a second mother and care for Azra from a young age. As a college senior, she is interning at a prestigious firm and is set to have a successful corporate life, just as her mother dreamed for her.

Emine (40): Azra and Büşra’s mother, Emine is strict when it comes to education and appearances. Having been denied the privilege of an education herself, all she wants for her daughters is a good education and well-paying jobs. Her traditional views lead her to judge Azra’s lifestyle choices but she feels somewhat hopeless in controlling her rebellious daughter, often times fearing for her future.

The most important element of the stylistic approach will be clearly distinguishing between the riverside scenes and Azra’s home scenes.

The stable camera and smooth movements will create a feeling of safety in this place Azra has chosen as a haven away from her troubles. 

The use of narrow-angle lenses will make long distances seem closer, symbolizing Azra and Ceren's emotional closeness despite their physical distance in addition to creating a feeling of intimacy through narrow focus length. 

At home, we will exclusively use a handheld camera to capture the unstable feeling of Azra’s home environment and wide-angle lenses to emphasize her loneliness and alienation.

We aim to shoot this short film with a small crew to keep production costs as low as possible. As the story takes places and will be shot in Turkey, the production costs will be lower than an average US production. However, with the state of the Turkish economy and diminishing funds for short films, we need all the support we can get.

What We’ve Done So Far

We have a completed script in both Turkish and English. We have found our four main cast members who are all actors with theater backgrounds. We’ve done location scouts and have determined the river and house locations.

For the costume and art design we have completed mood-boards. We have begun discussions and rehearsals with the actors. We’ve also agreed to work with a DoP who will bring his own crew and camera to the shoot.

Where We Are Now

We are in the process of building a storyboard and a detailed shooting schedule. After the fundraiser goes live, we will begin to work on securing elements dependent on budget such as the location agreement, costumes, art design and extra equipment needed for production.

How Your Donations Will Help

Due to the current economic crisis in Turkey, production costs have gone up as incomes have gone down. The process it takes to bring this story to the screen has become quite challenging. However, with a collaborative effort and community support we know we can make it happen!

Your donations will go towards:

• Location fees
• Technical equipment (Lights, audio equipment, additional camera equipment)
• Costumes
• Props and Art Design
• Post-production
• Transportation & Food

Shooting Schedule

We plan on having a 3-day shoot in the second half of August in Istanbul.

Follow Along!

We will be sharing updates of the production process as well as images and stills from the shoot. We will be sending the completed film to festivals in Turkey and abroad, and hope to have a fruitful festival run that we can share with you all.

Other ways to support this film

• Follow our Seed & Spark page and help us grow the community!
• Follow us on Instagram @between.us.akhs — we’ll be sharing production updates, BTS footage and more
• Tell your friends!

A few years ago, I was sitting on a cement riverbank, staring at the opposite shore, when I got the idea for Between Us / Aramızda Kalan Her Şey. I wondered what it might look like if a stranger appeared on the other bank. I wanted to know what kind of a friendship could blossom in those circumstances. It was a particularly difficult and isolating period of my time living in the US. Since that moment, the story of two people who take refuge by an urban riverside kept growing inside me.

I used to be obsessed with all the ways in which I felt alienated from various communities I was a part of. As I’ve grown and met people I resonate with, I’ve realized that the same aspects of my identity I thought were isolating were also all the ways in which I could find community. Exactly two years after that moment by the river, I decided to move back to my hometown, Istanbul, and everything started falling into place for this story to come to life. During a time when I’ve been re-adjusting to new communities, Azra and Ceren’s story has been a guiding light of hope.

My dream with this film is to instill that same glimmer of hope in others that, even in an especially isolating world, there will always be people who come to the other side of our rivers. All we have to do is be brave enough to accept them.

Here’s to finding each other where we go to be alone…