Nergis Karadağ and Simay Çalışkan met during their undergraduate education at Ege University, Faculty of Communication, Department of Radio, Television, and Cinema. Both were interested in women’s issues, queer theory, and the media coverage of these issues. Thereupon, they shot their first short documentary animated film called “Homur Homur” on LGBTI + visibility. In the film using a language of humor, they ironically use a slogan their film saying, “Your homophobia goes to hell."

Zeynep Pehlivan

İzmir- Nergis Karadağ was born in a small village of Çanakkale province. Since her house located in an olive grove outside the village, she grew up as a happy child running in the countryside. In the village, Nergis found her grandfather’s Salim Mutlu Harp Memories Collection Museum. The idea of forming a museum actually began when her grandfather collected pieces from the fields or around the village from the Çanakkale War in his own grocery store. Previously, her grandfather displayed those pieces in a part of his grocery store. Nergis sold postcards and souvenirs at the entrance of that museum while she was a primary school student. She also worked as a guide for those who wanted to visit the museum. In this way, she had the opportunity to talk and meet many people. When she was a high school student, she was interested in theater but she was always more interested in recording theater plays. She stayed in the dormitory because her school was far from her home and she started to shoot music videos and videos containing simple stories along with her dormmates.

Simay Çalışkan was not a very social person before starting university. Apart from studying, she spent most of her time writing short stories, poems, and watching movies. She watched movies and read fictional books during her high school years and also started writing scripts in those years. Her interest in cinema started when she was a primary school student. Along with her friends, they played roles by changing the characters and stories they had seen in movies. Her desire to study cinema and become a director began at that time. Animation movies are always a part of her life and are one of the most enjoyable movies to watch for her.

Nergis Karadağ and Simay Çalışkan met during their undergraduate education at Ege University, Faculty of Communication, Department of Radio, Television, and Cinema. Both were interested in women’s issues, queer theory, and the media coverage of these issues. Even Simay did her master's degree in the Department of Women's Studies at Ege University while Nergis continued doing her master's degree in cinema at Ege University. They shot an animation film called “Homur Homur” about the LGBTI + visibility issue.

·         “Homur Homur” is your first film and it is about the visibility of the LGBTI +. How did you decide to address this issue? Was it difficult to shoot an animation film?

Simay: We always talked about the invisibility of the LGBTI +. We live in a society seeing lesbian couples as “friends” and ignoring them.  For this reason, we wanted to address this issue in our film. Homur Homur is our first animation film. Therefore, we had a lot of difficulties because we shot a movie with a technique we didn’t know.

Nergis: the issue of the LGBTI + was an issue that we often thought about with my director friend Simay at that time. And we wanted to shoot an animation film. Thus, the two fields united. I hadn’t had experience in how to shoot an animation film and it was difficult for me. We learned everything slowly and through trial and error at almost every stage. 

·         You chose to shoot the issue of the LGBTI + in your film, it is almost like saying, “Your homophobia goes to hell”. What kind of comments have you received?

Simay: We haven’t received any homophobic comments. Generally, we have received positive feedbacks. I don’t think we attract the attention of the audience because there are not many animated short films about the LGBTI + in Turkey.

Nergis: The most comment I like about the film is “titter”. I feel happy when the audience titter a little while watching the film altogether in the cinema because homophobia is a very funny attitude for us. Regarding LGBTI +, people usually produce pessimistic movies based on their pain. Of course, this is not a problematic thing; after all, we share our feelings and experiences through movies. But we tried to use the power of humor from the very beginning of the project. We stop being afraid of what we are laughing at, we titter about the homophobia, we laugh even we burst into laughter.

·         What have you been doing lately? Do you have projects that you continue on the same issue using the animation technique? Are you thinking of going on together?

Simay: We love thinking and producing on LGBTI + and gender issues. For this reason, they are unavoidably included in the content of our work. I generally have more tendencies to shoot animation movies, but I would like to shoot other styles of movies too. We have projects that we have carried out both individually and together. We keep working.

Nergis: I recently took part in a project. For this project, we shot a short documentary film called “Annemin Çocukluk Fotoğrafları (My Mother's Childhood Photos)” along with my teammates. Issues such as women and LGBTI + become a part of my life and I want to work on these issues. Apart from that, I also want to shoot a documentary film about my village. Working with Simay is very improving. I can say that we are currently working on a gender-themed project that will most likely be an animation film.