The director was born and grew up in Turkey. In 2010, she relocated to France and studied psychology. She now works as a psychologist with people in exile and young people in foster care. In parallel to this work, in 2019 she participated in the La Ruche Gindou Cinéma writing residency during which she developed the screenplay for her debut short film, „Adieu tortue“.
What was your starting point for „Adieu Tortue“?
At the core of this geographical choice, the plateaus of the Black Sea, lie the memories of all my summers spent there with my grandparents. I was impressed by the almost permanent presence of a thick fog filling the emptiness of the valleys, as if I were at the frontier between a terrestrial and celestial world. I’ve also always had a fascination for the child-adult duet in cinema. Then naturally came the story of two out-of-place people who are both inhabited by this place in their own way.
Do you have a favorite moment in the film? Which one and why this one?
I love the moment when they’re in the pick-up with the lady. Suddenly it gets darker, from the pick-up we see some villagers living their everyday lives. We know we’re getting closer to Inci’s, and the lady in the pick-up sings an improvised song, based on her encounter with the two girls, like a storyteller. Everything gets quieter and quieter, and her voice sounds as if it’s being broadcasted throughout the village. This type of singing is very common in this region, as if people were letting their unconsciousness sing all at once. You find yourself listening to your own story, sung by people who are storytellers without knowing it.
What do you like about the short form?
As far as my own work is concerned, the question was how to bring strong characters to life without revealing too much of their mystery in a short amount of time? How do you create an emotion in a fast and brutal form? These were interesting questions to work on.
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PRESS REVIEW
„Bye Bye Turtle‘ lives or dies with the chemistry of its two leads. […] That so much meaning shines through is a testament to Oksuzoglu’s story and the layered performances she elicits from her cast.“
review by Ben Nicholson for The Film Verdict
„In the misty, dreamlike mountains of Northern Turkey, the young Inci and the 30-year-old Zeynep strike up an unlikely partnership. One has escaped from home; the other returns to it. With baroque-electronic musical choices and stunning landscape shots, Bye Bye Turtle is a rare classically constructed and framed short film in the Berlinale selection. Öksüzoğlu’s spare yet melancholic screenplay, aided by simple acting flourishes and a warm aesthetic, finds those all-important jolts of connection between the two very different characters. Inci’s naivety deepens Zeynep’s reluctance to face her father. At the same time, the former’s relative maturity forces Inci to come to terms with her mother’s sickness. Together they test the bonds of family and the difficulty of facing up to the inevitability of the future and one’s life choices. It’s all the more impressive for being the Turkish director’s first short film, written during a residency in France“
review by Redmond Bacon for Directos Note
„(…)in anderen Filmen wie „Bye Bye Turtle“ ging es um Familie und wie manchmal Verbindungen entstehen, wo man sie nicht erwartet.“
mention by Doreen Kaltenecker for Testkammer
„Bye Bye Turtle by Selin Öksüzoğlu (France/Turkey) is a wonderfully observed story of a fateful encounter between a young girl and a young woman, which delves into reckoning with the past as well as touching upon the role of femininity throughout the generations.“
mention by Laurence Boyce for Cineuropa
„The film offers both: a meditation about human life in an seemingly endless landscape of mountains and fog but one can also enjoy it as a mesmerizing cinematic poem.“
review by Rüdiger Tomczak for shomingekiblog
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ETC.
„In Adieu tortue, two very different people meet – a five-year-old girl and an adult woman – and help each other without realising it or even planning to do so.“
interview with section head Anna Henckel-Donnersmarck for Berlinale Topics
reactions on letterboxd
Berlinale Shorts 