Derviş Zaim
At the end of every summer, 'Hasanpasa' village holds a shepherding contest. The traditional contest requires shepherds to herd their sheep one by one through a pool of water. The shepherd who crosses the pool with his flock fastest and with least hesitation wins the contest. 'Hasanpasa's seasoned champion for the past eight years is an elderly shepherd known as 'Takmaz'. 'Takmaz' is determined to teach the younger generation the finer points of being a good shepherd, like him.
The film is set in 1963, when the Greek nationalist movement on the island was fast gaining momentum. A teenage girl is separated from her father, a shadow puppet master, when the two are forced to flee from their village due to escalating violence. Her attempts to find her father are intertwined with the consequences of an ever increasingly oppressive Greek regime. The story takes place mainly in a mixed ethnicity village, where the puppet master’s brother lives. As the Greek regime becomes ever more repressive, tensions between some of the Greek and Turkish inhabitants arise. After a Turkish shepherd is shot in the head by Greek police violence breaks out between the neighbours and we see how the two communities, who had once lived in relative harmony, sharing food, friendships and even love, are torn apart.
Eflatun is a master miniature artist who's living in 17th century Istanbul. One day, he's taken to the vizier's mansion by force. There he learns that Danyal, one of the Ottoman princes who has ignited an insurrection, is arrested in a far off state and to be executed soon. Eflatun is ordered to make a portrait of the rebel prince who's been condemned to death in a Western manner to help the authorities be certain on the identity of him. Upon the order, Eflatun sets off for an arduous journey to Anatolia. He picks up a girl named Leyla en route. Together, they find themselves in a great venture fraught with sensations.
Hayri and Orhan are two music producers head over heels in debt. In an attempt to find the next big thing to turn the business around, they contact Ferhat, a gastarbeiter in Germany, and desperately bring him to Istanbul to sign him. As they are struggling to find the necessary funds to promote Ferhat's debut album, a mysterious rich woman named Firuze shows up and starts supporting them. The future now seems bright, but things are not always what they seem...
Four 40-something friends are haunted by the violent past of a divided Cyprus. Temel wants desperately to speak about the crimes of vengeance he committed as a teenager. He would like to confess about the bodies buried in the muddy patch of a dried-up salt lake, but fear holds him back from even going there. Ali participates in Temel's UN projects aimed at defusing tension between Cyprus' Greek and Turkish communities....
Elephants and Grass (Turkish: Filler ve Çimen) is a 2001 Turkish drama film, written and directed by Derviş Zaim, about six different stories that merge into a common theme. The film, which went on nationwide general release across Turkey on January 5, 2001, won awards at film festivals in Antalya and Istanbul, including the Golden Orange Behlül Dal Jury Special Award.
Mahsun Supertitiz is an unemployed homeless man who steals cars at night so that he can sleep in a heated place during the winter. Mahsun lives in Rumelihisar, an old section of Istanbul, and makes ends meet by getting the local fishermen to help him. Mahsun loves the cars he robs, cleans and polishes them, and drives them through the streets of Rumelihisar during the daytime.
Derviş Zaim turns his camera into a tragedy in Syria this time and reminds once again the value of telling stories. Flash memory is from a true story; It is inspired by a Syrian military officer secretly taking out 11,000 photographs documenting the regime's violence against civilians and opponents. Losing his ability to speak as a result of an attack, Ahmet starts working in a unit where people who died in conflicts are photographed and recorded. He wants to announce what he sees to the world, and to give voice to stories stuck in war. He has to choose between protecting himself and his wife or fulfilling his responsibility to humanity.
