About Film

The story of those who question our compulsion of big cities and say ‘it is possible to live in a different way’. Some only dreams others chase their dreams. In this 13-episode documentary series, ‘A handful of Soil’, we witness the ones who chase their dreams and make peace with the nature.

Turkey / 2012 / 26‘ X 13 / HD / Turkish – English, German, Russian Subtitle

We were separated from the land, we were packed in the houses one under another. Mother Irazca’s words ‘I will not let another house be built in front of mine’ stood like Don Quixote’s ghost. We are next to each other but just those foreigners. In our technological and single cells we adopted ‘additive-containing’ and ‘durable’ lives far away from the nature. We are chaotic, stresses, impatient, pale and complaining all the time. We always talk about ‘getting a handful of land and leaving this city’. A small holiday town which was a dream for retirement turned into what everyone from all ages want. People have taken off after different lives. There have been some people who left all their routine in the city at once and settle in the villages, to the mountains. Among them were the city runaways, the ones tired of the city and adventurers, too. Yet, our film tells the story of the ones asking ‘what is it we pay off’, ‘it is possible to live in a different way’ and went back to the land.

Purpose, Approach

With their structuring, crowd and chaos making our lives a torture most of the time, are big cities our only alternatives? Can there be a conscious and preferred country life in our country too? Is it possible to live without being apart from the nature or being carried away by the consumption frenzy? Can there be an urban farmer? Are all these running away from the city, these pursuits a kind of trend? We think aloud with the people whose lives we witness. We are reconsidering the cities we live in. We ask if it is possible to build a new living space with our own color and shape apart from the models that are presented to us. In a world where everything is constructed upon the urban life are these life trials utopic? In our narration which we used the witness method basically, we will have questions that we seek answers. Is it possible for people who have spent so much time in big cities to get rid of this urbanism that stick on them? The work done is very important but how and what is the source of the responses of practical life? How do people who have little or no contact with the nature have a start in the country? Is this a reunion or just a struggle with the nature? Is the word ‘it’s not the nature that needs us but we need the nature’ valid in every situation? Is it possible for the ones who fought or struggled with the nature all the time and had a public memory to have another relationship in an instant? Our film focuses on the ones who leave the city in order to ‘have a collective life in the country’. Although we take a stand with the ‘another life is possible’ idea, our attitude to these stories do not show it. In these life style trials, we not only witness the things created but also show the things that do not work or contradict.

Crew

Yapım – Production

TRT Belgesel Kanalı – TRT Tourism and Documentary Channel

Yönetmen, Metin Yazarı – Written and Directed by

Bingöl Elmas, Sultan İlhan

Görüntü Yönetmeni – Director of Photography

Koray Kesik

Kameraman – Cameraman

Mehmet Eren Bozbaş, Sultan İlhan, Uğur Hamidoğlu

Kurgu – Editing

Uğur Hamidoğulları, Ali İlhan

Ses – Sound

Özkan Arınkal, Ali İlhan, Uğur Hamidoğlu

Müzik – Music

Taner Sarf

Yapım , Yönetim Asistanı – Assistants to the Director

Sultan İlhan, Özgür Küçüktülü

Görsel Tasarım ve Jenerik- Color Correction and Generic Desing

Ali İlhan

Ses ve Görüntü Deşifresi

Aliye Düşünmez, Sultan İlhan

Çeviriler – Translation

İngilizce- English: Şirin Bahar Demirel, Gülşen Altun, Selen Akhuy

Rusça – Rusia : Emine Beldağ

Almanca- German: Veronika Hartman

Altyazı Uygulama – Subtitle Application

Onur Çakır

Muhasebe – Accounting

Metin Açar

© TRT Belgesel Kanalı  – 2012

Press Release

The documentary series, ‘A Handful of Land’, is meeting the audience!

The story of those who leave their urban lives behind and move to the villages and reconnect to the nature is meting the audience in this 13-episode documentary series on TRT Documentary Channel. In this documentary series which is produced by Asmin Film and directed by Bingöl Elmas, the story of the ones asking who said ‘it is possible to live in a different way’ and went back to the soil is depicted. They combine their knowledge with the villagers’ experience, build eco villages everywhere they go, do organic farming and grow what they consume. This documentary series which tells the story of those who pursue their dreams is on air on TRT Documentary Channel.

Episodes of the Series