Nil Kural, film critic for the Istanbul newspaper Milliyet, sends sad news to the German-language film magazine artechock: “Seyfi Teoman was the most brilliant name in the new generation of Turkish directors. As a producer and friend of Emin Alper, he won the Best Film Award at the Istanbul Film Festival for Alper’s Beyond the Hill. On April 16, he sustained serious injuries in a motorcycle accident. For 21 days, he fought to survive, and for 21 days, the world of cinema hoped for his recovery. But he didn’t make it. Yesterday evening, at 5 pm, Seyfi Teoman passed away.”
Beyond the Hill also won the Caligari Film Award at the Berlinale in February. Teoman’s own Our Grand Despair screened in Competition at the Berlinale in 2011 and won the People’s Choice Award and the Special Prize of the Jury in Istanbul that year. His Summer Book (2008) fared even better, winning Best Turkish Film of the Year and the FIPRESCI Prize in Istanbul and a Gold Hugo in Chicago. Variety‘s Derek Elley wrote, “From its first shot of an empty, ruined fort above town that’s gradually filled with hordes of school kids (and one in particular) wearing identical blue uniforms, Summer Book breathes a quiet assurance that’s very impressive for a first feature.”
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