Atom Egoyan considers film in Turkey

Famous Armenian-Canadian film director Atom Egoyan may shoot a film in Turkey, according to Hurriyet Daily News & Economic Review.

A joint project with Turkish directors "would be a good step toward dialogue," Egoyan told the paper during a recent interview in Yerevan, where he was celebrating his 50th birthday along with his wife, Armenian-Canadian actress Arsinée Khanjian.

A fan of Turkish Nobel laureate author Orhan Pamuk, and especially his novel "Snow," Egoyan said it would "be a pleasure" to adapt the writer's work to the silver screen.

Atom Egoyan noted he was following a new generation of Turkish directors, including Yesim Ustaoglu, Nuri Bilge Ceylan and Semih Kaplanoglu, and said he had had a chance to meet several Turkish directors during the International Golden Apricot Film Festival in Yerevan two weeks ago.

“As two publics, we need to speak about these incidents without a mediator,” he said. “Since we don’t speak, the West has not hesitated to [exploit] our wounds for political interests.”

 Egoyan shot Ararat in 2002, which examined the Armenian Genocid in 1915, attracting great anger from Turkish nationalist circles.

Snow (Turkish: Kar) was published in Turkish in 2002 and in English (translated by Maureen Freely) in 2004. Further it was translated into Russian in 2009. The story encapsulates many of the political and cultural tensions of modern Turkey and successfully combines humor, social commentary, mysticism, and a deep sympathy with its characters. The events take place in Kars and has several mentions about Armenians and the Armenian premises in Kars.