Callshop Istanbul
Canada 2016 | 98 Min. | OmeU

Istanbul is the bridgehead between Europe and Asia and the entrance for travelers, refugees, and people seeking happiness from all over the world. Just as their journey brings them here, many of them are not able to continue on. In this film, Hind Benchekroun and Sami Mermer show the city and the people who are stranded here from an original perspective: They follow them into the callshops full of rows of narrow phone booths and record the conversations of these people who no longer have a home. We listen to their worries about the war situation and their longing to see their loved ones again. It all becomes a multilingual expression of rootlessness that flows back to their home countries through the wires. Each conversation in the call shops of Istanbul is a brief glimpse into a person’s life and how they came to be in Istanbul. Nothing weighs as heavy as a call that is not answered, when no one picks up the phone on the other end. The connections are unreliable and unstable, just like their lives unfolding in Istanbul.
The film also leaves the micro portraits in the phone booths and takes to the streets, where it follows protests at Taksim Square and shows Turkey in the eyes of the immigrants living in a parallel society. We meet three men from Benin, who make a living by selling watches illegally, as they try to estimate the risk of taking a boat to Greece based on hearsay. In the end, they decide to turn around. Information is essential for survival. The change in perspective in the refugee and immigration debate is a theme that runs all throughout CALLSHOP ISTANBUL.
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Hind Benchekroun geb. in Marokko, lebt und arbeitet in Kanada und Marokko. Sie ist seit vielen Jahren im Dokumentarfilmbereich tätig, führte u.a. Co-Regie bei TAXI CASABLANCA (2008), einer Dokumentation über die einzige Taxifahrerin in Marokko.
Sami Mermer geb. in der Türkei, studierte Mathematik und Umwelttechnik, bevor er in Kanada Film studierte. Sami Mermer war im Spielfilmbereich tätig und realisierte mit THE BOX OF LANZO (2007) seinen ersten langen Dokumentarfilm.
Hind Benchekroun und Sami Mermer gründeten zusammen die Produktionsfirma Turtle Films. Weitere gemeinsame Filme: CARESSING TIME (2004, Kurzfilm), LA PETITE FILLE D’AVANT (2005, Kurzfilm), LES TORTUES NE MEURENT PAS DE VIEILLESSE (2010).