Set Off

Mustafa Emin Büyükcoskun / Germany, Türkiye / 2019 / World Premiere / 63 min.

synopsis

The city of Kobani lies in Syria on the border of the sphere of influence of the Islamic State, Turkey and the Kurds. Representatives of these three opposing parties battled it out between the years 2014 and 2016 during a war conflict that claimed the lives of many civilians, including thirty-three Turkish citizens who had come there beforehand for various reasons. Conceptualized as a film in their memory, the filmmakers use symbolism to follow their fateful journey as they set off for a city in ruins. The footage is complemented by double exposures of the survivors' faces, who tell of the untimely deaths of their friends and relatives.

“Set Off was an exercise about how and what to tell, after an unmourned disaster; a journey parallel to theirs, daydreaming in the middle of a conflict zone, where landscape deconstructs power regimes.“ M. E. Büyükcoskun

biography

Istanbul-born Mustafa Emin Büyükcoşkun (1988) is a student of the German University of Art and Design in Karlsruhe. He worked as assistant director for the film, but also worked as a producer and cameraman assistant. As director, he made the short film, Sardunya (2008), and thirteen episodes of the Hanlardan Plazalara (2013) documentary series for Turkish television. Set-Off is his feature film debut.

more about film

director:	Mustafa Emin Büyükcoskun
producer:	Arzu Demir
photography:	Ezgi Aydın, Emre Altan, Mustafa Emin Büyükcoşkun
editing:	Semih Gülen, Mustafa Emin Büyükcoşkun
sound:	David Loscher