On Thursday, January 19, Bilkent Erzurum Laboratory School held a video conference with the director of the “Dağ I” and “Dağ II” films, Alper Çağlar, who is also the son of the former Director of BELS, Prof. Dr. Arif Çağlar.
During the video conference, Mr. Çağlar explained the processes before and during the shooting of “Dağ”, a military film, which arouses feelings of both patriotism and pride in the audience. While summarizing the film-making process, Mr. Çağlar gave suggestions about the visual effects, sound effects and the naming of the characters used in his films to instruct those students interested in film-making. He also answered questions from BELS students about his educational background and the scenarios of “Dağ I” and “Dağ II”.
In addition, Mr. Çağlar mentioned the Turkish cinema industry and the social aspects of shooting a military film in Turkey. He quoted statistics, which reflected the rarity of Turkish military films. Other than military films, Mr. Çağlar explained his other works such as his first documentary film entitled “Not so Far Away”, which he shot when he was in high school. With his motivating words, Mr. Çağlar encouraged the BELS students to think about their future interests and suggested they … “go after their dreams and put aside social pressures”.
Towards the end of the conference, Mr. Çağlar explained his own future plans and shared his personal ideas about the Dağ films. He ended the video conference with a popular quote from “Dağ II”: “We rise to be a thousand!”