Interview with Director Elif Savas - by Brian Mahoney, Chronogram 12/99
A: "I just cold-called them; I was very honest with them and told them who I was and why I was interested in this topic. Then they said let me meet with you so I had to go to everyone's house and I had to talk sometimes for three hours to make them believe that I was honest and really trying to make a good film out of this and not just use them and expose them. They weren't worried that I was a female, a new director; they were scared that I didn't know enough about Turkish politics because I was too young. For example, a rightist politician was scared that I would put leftist politicians longer in the film, so it would become leftist propaganda."
A: "I was never scared to be on the streets; maybe I was too young to be scared, too childish. They would soot at our school and we would have to go down under our tables so we wouldn't get shot. But it was just like it was a big game to us. We really didn't understand. [The military government in the 80's] had a policy to get politics out of the minds of children. We were ignorant. Everybody cared about American films more than anything else."
A: "Maybe because they have respect for people who stay away from media. The military keep themselves somewhat away from conventional life and they are very well educated. To be a politician, you don't have to go to school- you can just decide to become a politician and go with it. You don't have to know anything, you can just create this illusion around yourself. So Turkish people see that, and they also see that politicians will act like they are leftists one day and rightists the next. The people trust the military more because they are always there for them."
A: "If politicians and government acted normal, then the military wouldn't have to intervene at all. I'm not saying that coup is a great thing; I think it's a terrible embarrassment for Turkey to have military constantly over us, looking at us like a father figure. But you have to live there to understand it because the politicians screw it up so terribly, you really go to the streets and look for a soldier to help you."
Interview with Producer Brian Felsen - by Ann Morrow, Metroland Newspaper, 12/99
"I've never been politically active, but it happened to be the 75th anniversary of the Turkish Republic," Felsen says, recounting how he and his wife, Elif Savas, got caught up in the tide of Turkish history. "We were living in Turkey when they were having the anniversary celebration, and we marched in the pro-secular parade. Here we were, with tens of thousands of people holding up candles and pictures of national hero Ataturk and shouting, "Turkey will remain secular! And "Turkey will not fall under Koranic law!"
"The idea of a militarily-imposed democracy is fascinating and strange and confusing." So fascinating in fact, that Felsen and his wife made a documentary about it. COUP, their digital-format documentary, incorporates rare archival footage as it examines the collision between military authority and civil action in Turkey.
Although Felsen was fascinated by Turkey's complex political turmoil, he was inspired by the level of involvement of the Turkish population: "The people are so politically active, it's amazing. We think these countries are more naïve than America, but actually, it's the opposite. The people are much more aware of the events around them. It was both exhilarating and a culture shock."
"…People I talked to loved the army and were hoping the military would come and have a coup. The people were rooting for the military to overthrow the prime minister they had voted for and impose their own guy, because he would be more democratic. I thought that was an oxymoron. It's very odd that a democracy the US supports would need the army to protect it. We had been there almost a year before I realized what an amazing story was occurring...the army basically said to the ruling religious party, 'You'll step down, or what happened during the last three coups will happen again.' The Refah Party did step down, and the army appointed a new prime minister, but there are still a lot of Fundamentalist mayors in power."
Most of the couple's success in obtaining never-before-seen military footage and high-ranking interviewees was due to timing: "Turkey has a multiparty system, and the political climate can swing wildly. In 1998, we had a unique opportunity. The '97 coup was a coup by memorandum, and there wasn't much street violence. A lot of the people involved in the events leading up to the 1980 coup were ready to talk who hadn't been willing before. Some of the extremists were no longer afraid, although one of the columnists who speaks in the film was car-bombed to death shortly after. And the people who were involved in the 1960 coup are older now- we were lucky to get them while they're still with us. One of the generals in the film died of a heart attack about two months ago."
But what Felsen is most proud of is the film's objectivity: "Elif and I shared the goal of not imposing our points of view on the picture. One of the questions the film raises is whether an abstract American democratic ideal can be globally transported. I think we were true to our goal of telling a complex story as an extended debate."