Program

Apollon By Day Athena By Night

Storyline

Raised as an orphan, Defne, a cranky newbie psychic, finds herself in the ancient town of Side (Antalya), accompanied by the ghosts of a Marxist revolutionary, a prostitute and a primeval priestess; as she searches for her long lost mother.

About the film/director

After graduating from METU Business Administration, she attended the Bilgi University Cinema Studies MA Program. She produced films such as Siren’s Call (2018, Tokyo IFF Main Competition), The Impeccables (2013, Busan FF, Romania International FF), The Monster's Dinner (2011, Montpellier FF, Antalya,FF), Ziazan (2014, Cannes Diversity), Mother Virgin No More (2015 Berlinale FF Generation). She wrote the screenplay of The Impeccables which garnered her a Best Screenplay Award from Ankara FF and the Bilge Olgaç Women’s Achievement award. She has also written hit Turkish TV shows such as Call My Agent (2020) and Be My Sunshine (2021). Androktones(2018), the experimental documentary she directed was showcased at the Pera Museum and Korean CİCA museum, while her fiction short film ill fortune (2023) competed in the Nuremberg German Turkish FF and is a nominee of the Turkish Film Critics Fantastic Film Award. She teaches screenwriting at Kadir Has Uni. and also performs as a stand-up comedian. She is an EAVE 2014 graduate.

Director’s statement

While you live, shine / have no grief at all / life exists only for a short while /and time demands its toll. (Seikolos Epitaph, the oldest surviving musical composition, excavated in Aydın Turkey, from the Hellenistic Period 1st Century CE)
Apollon By Day Athena By Night strives to explore the notion of belonging and empathy, and how a woman who grew up as an orphan, reclaims her own sense of belonging by interacting with the dead and the living— a fantasy comedy in the form of a ghost story. It is about guilt, grief and the search for connection in a world that is both cruel and compassionate.
This is also a quirky story about hope, friendship and holding on to what Spinoza calls “pure joy”, despite rejection and oppression in a world that’s currently breaking.
The film embraces the heterogeneous cultures of the ancient geography of Anatolia, present day Turkey.
I choose to embrace the benevolent spirit of humanity and what’s left of it in my own geography, and strive to invite the audience to remember, whoever we might be, that we have the power to reclaim our personal and collective stories