11'e 10 Kala
10 to 11
»While Ali is prepared to start over and face the chaos of the new, the fragile little Mr Mithat – with those dark, alert eyes – remains the archivist of a culture of objects threatened with disappearance, the guardian of unheeded articles that, in only a few years time, will be mere crystals of the memory. In his apartment, the Analogue stands up to the all-consuming Digital, the last bastion of the slower-paced and the ineffective.«
– Alexandra Seitz
Mithat Bey lives on the fourth floor of an apartment block in Istanbul. He has managed up until now to protect his collections. Finds which he digs up in far-flung corners of Istanbul and then lets grow at home – ceiling-high. To his eyes, when he’s out searching for new collectors’ items, the city appears infinite. By contrast, Ali’s world consists only of the house and its immediate surroundings. Ali came from rural parts to work in Istanbul as a janitor. One day when a demolition order is served on the house, their small world threatens to disintegrate. Mithat Bey (played by Pelin Esmer’s Uncle Mithat) confronts this threat aggressively whereas Ali tries to get the best possible out of the situation. The building now determines the fate of the two last remaining residents: Mithat and Ali. Pelin Esmer succeeds in creating an act of affectionate if critical reverence to her hometown of Istanbul, a city caught between tradition and modernity, memory and forgetting, conservation and renewal.
Awards for ›11’e 10 Kala‹
FiPresCi Award, Tromso international Filmfestival, Finnland, 2009 | Black Pearl, Best Middle Eastern Narrative Director, Middle Eastern international Film Festival, Abu Dhabi 2009 | Best Film, Best screenplay, Adana Golden Ball Film Festival 2009 | Special Jury Price, Istanbul Film Festival 2009