My Letter to Pippa

As a woman in a country encircled by war and as a documentary film-maker. I want to believe that there is peace and safety. This is why I want to continue from where you were stopped.

Dear Pippa, while you lived your last minutes in horror, in every corner of the world women suffered from all forms of violence just because they’re women.

I know that this doesn’t only belong here. As I continued this journey, my hope never wavered.
I believed in the good of people.

Dear Pippa, throughout my trip everyone told me that the others were dangerous and bad. When and how did we start to live in such fear and prejudice?

Following Pippa’s path…

Our documentary is a confrontation about violence against women in Turkey. What happened to Pippa is the motivation for this confrontation and offers a connecting thread. First, this terrifying violence was unbearable. But secondly, it was just as unbearable to realize that this violence was not making the headlines because Pippa was a stranger, a European!

The film will start at the moment and location where Pippa was killed and will re-trace the footsteps of her planned itinerary. We will cross the country, from North to West and South to East, along more than 1500km, to meet the population that Pippa should have crossed according to the itinerary she had planned.

This trip is of course a tribute to Pippa but also to all the thousands of Turkish victims of this violence, sinister in its commonality and normalcy. It is also a pretext to interrogate a mentality that doesn’t seem to want or be able to solve the problems. This is also a personal expression of a young woman, the director Bingol Elmas, who needs to trust others, especially her own people. With war and violence everywhere, a woman needs to be able to hear and see peace and serenity for herself.

The priority is to collect reactions, the most sincere ones, the intimate ones of all those people we will cross along this journey. Therefore, the letter to Pippa will be improvised. It will be very personal and immediate reaction to Pippa’s feelings and life story. This letter must not be written ahead of time, it must not be reduced to a comedian’s game. It will be a letter from one woman to another woman, of the same age, who will continue on the path where she left off. It will refer visually to the huge press coverage the dramatic incident had in Turkey and the reaction is generated among women and among the general population. It will mention all the protests that took place, and everything that her horrible death gave rise to.

“My Letter to Pippa” is on the road

The director Bingöl Elmas undertook the peace journey of Pippa Bacca which is interrupted in Turkey and transformed it in a documentary named “My Letter to Pippa”.

The national and international festival journey of the film whose first national screening took place in 9. AFM International Independant Films Festival has started.

Italian activist Pippa Bacca set out to hitchhike from Milan to Israel in a white wedding dress to raise awareness for global peace. Her journey was cut tragically short in Gebze, western Turkey, when she was brutally murdered. Director Bingöl Elmas dons a black wedding dress and takes up the journey where Pippa’s ended, until the Syrian border. Hitchhiking alone in trucks and minibuses across Turkey, she tries to make sense of why Pippa died. Throughout the country, with her subjective camera, she followed the traces of peace, trust and being a woman.

According to Bingöl Elmas, “ In this journey what happened to Pippa and states of masculinity are discussed as well as the reality of being a woman in Turkey is faced with. This is a movie about existing as a woman in a truck or on a highway without being harrased or raped. “

With the guidence of Tuğrul Artunkal, “My Letter to Pippa” is realized with the support of the european cultural channel ARTE and as part of the commun project of French producer Patrice Barrat which called “The Other Turkey”. A shooting crew consiste of 5 persons followed the director in her journey.

Technical Support
ASMİN FILM – ARTICLE Z
HIGH FUN – TABASKKO
STUDIO OFF BEAT
NTV
With the Participation of
MEDI 1 SAT

Embassy of France in Turkey:
Regional Audiovisual Attaché
Luciano Rispoli
With the support of
The Season of Turkey in France
(July 2009 – March 2010)
www.saisondelaturquie.fr
National Center of Cinematography (CNC)
Procirep / Angoa

Thanks to

Banu Güven,

Neşe Yalçın, Nilgün Yurdalan, Faysal Soysal, Özcan Yurdalan, İmren Tüzün, Ülkü Songül, Can Ertuna, Candan Yıldız, Funda Karakuş, Özgür Barış Akbayır, Ezgi Sarıtaş, Eren Sezer, Doruk Öztürkcan, Funda Karakuş, Nilgün Yanık, Ethem Dural

Zuhal Kaynak, Aran Kaynak

Melek Toraman, Zehra Metin, Pervin Metin, Esengül Metin, Nilüfer Yarbaş, Gülfer Akkaya, Fazilet Karakuzu, İmren Tübcil, Ayse Çetinbaş, Çağla Sumru Kesik, Zeycan Elmas, Özgür Küçüktülü

Savaş Güvezne, Ömer Tuncer, Ümit Kıvanç, Ayfer Tokatlıoğlu, Aziz Akal, Peri Johnson, Özge Akkoyunlu, Rüya Arzu Köksal, Aydın Kudu , Sezgin Türk

Jean Rozat

9th AFM International Independant Film Festival

February 2010 – İstanbul, Ankara – Turkey

Cinema City International Film Festival