Autumn

Özcan Alper was born in 1975 in a small town in the north east of Turkey.While studying Physics at the İstanbul University, he became very interested in cultural and politic themes. He therefore decided to study History and became involved with alternative cinema groups. Özcan Alper started his cinematic career, working as assistant director and production staff in several TV movies and serials. His first short film "Momi", received several awards. It was the first film ever shot in Hemsin language (a dialect from the northeast of Turkey). Autumn is his first feature film.The main reason for making this film lay in my identification with the main character, Yusuf. In Turkey, the generation I belong to started university in the 1990s, and experienced the same things as Yusuf. The dissolution of the USSR and the beginnings of globalisation had an enormous influence on us, as we were trying to find our place in the struggle against the anti-democratic laws introduced by the victors of the 1980 coup d'état. Thousands of left-wing students were jailed as political prisoners for having demanded greater freedom. I also had the same childhood as Yusuf, having grown up on the Turkish-Georgian border, and I was always very curious about what was happening over in the Soviet Union. I spent my time listening to stories about people crossing the border, and that sense of movement, of transition, is very present in Sonbahar.