The inner journey of director Mesut Uçakan: The Phoenix

Cinema dates back to the first screening by the Lumière brothers in Paris in 1895. It is known that the first screening in the Ottoman Empire took place at Yıldız Palace. The journey of cinema, which initially began in the center, extended to the provinces after the Second Constitutional Era. In the early years of the Republic, Turkish cinema was led by Muhsin Ertuğrul, who had a background in theater. After 1950, with the Democratic Party's increased road construction activities, cinema found the opportunity to reach remote areas. Various cinema movements have emerged in Turkey, just as in all around the world. The main movements include Social Realism, Revolutionary Cinema, National Cinema, and Milli Cinema. Milli Cinema, introduced by Yücel Çakmaklı in the 1960s, was concretized with the 1970 film "BirleşenYollar." The MTBB Cinema Club, founded in 1972, also produced remarkable works with an amateur spirit. Mesut Uçakan, who emerged from this club, has produced controversial works in the cinema world with his persistent ideas up to the present day. His 2007 film "Anka Kuşu / Bana SırrınıAç" stands apart from his other films. The film, which he refers to as his "inner journey" focuses on the transformation of a young man who comes to the city from the countryside to become a director. This transformation and the director's understanding of his experiences will take a considerable amount of time, but he will eventually reach the right path. In a sense, the young man, who becomes alienated from himself, will rediscover his "esence" in his own land. Sufi elements are used abundantly in the film.The association of internal transformation with a dervish lodge and its sheikh is the recipe for salvation the film offers us. "Anka Kuşu" is one of the rare films in the history of Turkish cinema telling the story of an inner transformation. In some respects, the film has been compared to "The Matrix" which was released in 1999.