As a filmaker you use time as your basic material in order to create meaning. Please tell us more about your own relationship with the manipulation of time when you start creating a movie.

There are different elements to any story. The succession of events and characters are the first ones that come to mind. For me “time” is an element like them.  Time is a concept that, as a result of the day-to-day struggle of life, we are only effectively aware of maybe when we run to try to make it to the subway, or when our team is losing in a sports event. We don’t usually take the time to think about “time”, even tough it is a basic element of our life… In Eastern classics like “The Arabian Nights” which are mainly passed from generation to generation orally, the concept of time is a basic element in storytelling. “Scheherazade” creates many and different time levels in her stories. And in doing so, even tough it isn’t put into words, she provides the reader/listener with many aspects of the mysteries of time. In “On the Count of Zero” (Sifir Dedigimde), we chose not to look at the East through the eyes of the West, but to look at East through the eyes of the East. This eventually led to “time” being one the most important and most intriguing elements of our story. This was an unintended consequence of the script, as the story we wanted to tell eventually demanded this approach. When we worked on the relativity of the time the characters spend in the hypnosis world, we came to the realization of how fleeting and temporary the existence of “real” time was. In short, time in “On the Count of Zero” is not just a countdown process, but a story element that forces the viewer to a revision of perception.

In your movie "Sifir Dedigimde" you present the possibility of  a different time line, a sort of "dream time" that intersects our world. Can you please tell us more about this concept of a different time, different reality during hypnosis?

There are a few paradoxal conditions present. Let me give you an example: suppose you send a person under hypnosis to exactly one week ago. The person will be in the exact universe she was in one week ago and will re-live the interactions he/she had with the people around her during that time. The fiction writer asks this very important question at this time: What happens if this person under hypnosis interacts with another person from one week ago, and gives them an information belonging to the world of “today”? More interestingly, it will be more evident how important the concept of time is for “On the Count of Zero” (Sifir Dedigimde) when you entertain the thought that the person he/she is interacting with might also be someone that was sent to that day one week ago, through a hypnosis session that might even be a day in the future when compared to today. Two different hypnosis subjects coming from two different times into the same hypnosis universe! This was one of the core ideas behind the script.

How important is time for you in your "real" life? Do you think often about time?

Time, for me is a very mysterious thing in every sense of the word. We use the word “thing” or “it”  for time, but what does that really mean? In the past centuries some philosophers and religious scholars have debated the notion of time as a “being”. Till the early 1900’s our notion of time was shaped by what was passed on by classic and ancient cultures. Einstein’s theory of relativity has pointed out that time can physically expand. After Einstein’s theory time was a dimension, like the physical ones of width, length and depth… There is a question I can’t stop asking myself: Is time as tangible a dimension as width, length and depth? Thinking about the similarities of the problems of modern physics and the approach of mysterious Eastern fairytales to time is very exciting. You have to think about a very broad range of subjects when you set out to write a script. 

Do you have all the sequences of the movies visually designed on storyboards before you shoot or you use only a written narrative to guide your shooting sessions? Do you have to see the movie in your mind before you start shooting it?

The answer to your second question is, yes. I have the movie already shot in my mind’s eye. But, there is the process of actually shooting my mind’s finished picture. In fact, it’s a lot like a Sufism experience. Just like you have a idea for the final cut of your own picture, God has his own version of the finished film. You have your own specific idea on how an actor should look at the camera, how the light should fall on them, and where the camera should be placed. But come the time of the actual shoot, you might have an actor coming down with the flu, with a coarse voice and runny eyes. Even the light and camera choices might be hindered by unforeseen difficulties. You also have the time limitation on particular locations on top all these. As a result, the preconceived and the final shot picture have many differences. In situations like these you have no option but to let the God do his own design on your film. Because of this experience, apart from those special scenes that require storyboards for effective execution, I don’t believe the whole film needs to be storyboarded.

 
What other filmakers do you consider relevant as a source of inspiration for your own development as a filmmaker?

There are a lot of filmmakers to mention obviously. Those that I need mention are: Frank Capra, Alfred Hitchcock and Sergio Leone. Capra, has effected me with his optimistic outlook on life and his expertise in storytelling, Hitchcock with his genious on the use of the visuals and ah Sergio Leone… He has effected me deeply by elevating the use of visuals and story (and time) to hard to reach artistic levels. Unfortunately, there are no more filmmakers like them…