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To Make an Example of
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T O M A K E A N E X A M P L E O F
In Turkey, the death penalty was abolished in 2002, and the final executions were carried out in 1984. Meanwhile, since the foundation of the republic, a total of 712 people, 15 of which were female, were executed ‘to serve as an example’. Even at times when death penalty was a hot issue, it was only discussed either around major political cases or based on the argument of ‘unjust executions’. The documentary humanely tackles the capital punishment issue through its actual enforcements in Turkey. While wandering in two deserted prisons where many executions were carried out; the film also tries to witness the very last moments of the convicts, as if such a thing is ever possible… And it raises this question on behalf of the hundreds who died on the gallows: Why did we kill all these people? “Believe me that I am not grieving for dying at my age, but for leaving you behind,sad and crying. For me, it takes only a moment, but for you... You will feel grief, and sadness in your heart for a lifetime. By the time you receive this letter, I will be dead. I’m not sad. Death is better than living in misery spending a lifetime in prison. Time heals everything, may be not in every sense, but mostly…” --Kadir Tandogan, June 25th, 1981
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FESTIVALS & AWARDS 11th International 1001 Documentary Film Festival, Istanbul (Nov. 2008) >>> DocumFest International Documentary Film Festival Miradas-Doc, Canary Islands, Spain (November 2008) 2nd "Cinema Verite" Iran Int'l Documentary Film Festival, Tehran (October 2008) 12th Ismailia Int'l Festival for Documentary & Short Films, 29th Int'l Cinematographers’
Film Festival - “Manaki Brothers”, Macedonia 9th Mediterranean Film Festival, Bosnia and Herzegovina (September 2008) 4th Rencontres Cinématographiques de Hergla, 15th Adana Film Festival, Turkey (June 2008) Bahrain Human Rights International Film Festival 6th International Non-Budget Film Festival, Cine Pobre, Cuba 19th Turkish Film Days, München 19th Ankara International Film Festival - Second Prize 10th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, Greece 2nd Int’l Silkroad Film Festival – Best Documentary Award / Golden Karagoz 44th Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival 4th Bodrum International Film Festival 54th Sydney Film Festival 26th International Istanbul Film Festival REVIEWS « Necati Sönmez's harrowing film looks at several cases and talks to those who witnessed a number of executions. It also raises the all-important question, why did all these people die? » « In the film's numerous interviews, Sönmez extracts almost clinical detail from his subjects rendering the horror of the act very real. One lawyer describes how it once took over 25 minutes for a man to die after being hanged. As effectively as the film evokes the terror of execution, it is how Sönmez creates the isolation of death row that makes his film a powerful experience. « To Make an Example Of (Ibret Olsun Diye) is an intelligent and well-made documentary by Necati Sönmez. It humanises the victims of capital punishment in Turkey and thereby mounts a strong case against the barbaric practice.(...) [It] is an important contribution to the fight against state-sponsored murder. » --Ismet Redzovic / wsws.org « It’s a simple cronicle of death, it’s the words of the criminals towards their families in order for them to be excused because they made them suffer, the images of the prisons which are presently abandoned: the sobriety of the film denounces with strength the inefficiency of the punishment. » --Catherine Bédarida / Le Monde, 16 April 2007 « Necati Sönmez, who is already the auteur of a beautiful portrait of Theo Angelopoulos entitled Theo’s Gaze is boarding on a very delicate subject in his third documentary, To Make an Example of : the death penalty, which was abolished in 2002 in Turkey. To those which would dream to see it reestablished, he reminds the last aplications in 1984, which were destined to serve as an example, the horror of executions, the pain of never being able to erase the victim’s guilt. Like any humanist documentarist with the sense of listening, he manages to take testimonies not only from the families of the condemned to death, but also from the torturers and the judges, testimonies which have testamentary value. » --Gregory Valens / Positif, June 2007 |
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