Untitled Document

THE MAGICIAN (Hokkabaz)

North America Premiere

Friday, March 30 5:45pm
Remis Auditorium, Museum of Fine Arts, 465 Huntington Avenue, Boston

"... pleasantly loopy, often touching road movie, ... the magic between the two nerdy pals and the loose-cannon patriarch provide the charm."

-- Peter Keough, Boston Phoenix

Currently in competition at the 26th Istanbul Film Festival

Directed by Cem Yilmaz and Ali Taner Baltaci

Written by Cem Yilmaz

Cast: Cem Yilmaz, Mazhar Alanson, Ozlem Tekin, Tuna Orhan

2006, 122 min. 35mm.
In Turkish with English subtitles

In his latest film, the enormously popular Turkish comedian Cem Yilmaz plays the struggling magician Iskender. The only person who believes in him is his childhood friend Maradona (Tuna Orhan) and together they dream of a better life. They embark on a tour of Anatolia to escape the hustle and bustle of Istanbul's streets, and to make as much money as possible. Things go wrong almost immediately when they are forced to take along Iskender's father, the mad Sait (Mazhar Alanson), who wrote off his son years ago. On the road, they entertain at a wedding party only to have the disappearing trick go terribly wrong, leading them to leave town in a hurry with an unexpected new companion. A roller-coaster of a road movie, "The Magician" is heavy on both laughs and tears.

FESTIVALS AND AWARDS:

26th Istanbul Film Festival (in competition)

Directors CEM YILMAZ & ALI TANER BALTACI:

CEM YILMAZ was born in Istanbul in 1973. His first comic drawings were published in Leman Magazine while he was doing his tourism studies at Bogazici University. His first stage performance took place at Leman Kültür in august 1995. He has been on stage ever since and he has achieved an unbreakable record of 2500 live performances in the last 11years.

Filmography:
Hokkabaz / The Magician (Actor, Scriptwriter, Director)	2006
Organize Isler / Magic Carpet Ride (Actor)	2005
G.O.R.A. (Actor, Scriptwriter)	2004
Vizontele (Actor)	2001
Her Sey Cok Guzel Olacak (Actor, Scriptwriter)	1998

ALI TANER BALTACI was born in 1977 in Bafra. He graduated from TED Ankara College and Ankara University Communications Faculty. He received many national and international awards, in addition to the first place awards from the Ankara Film Festival for his documentaries which he made two years in a row during his studies. He started his professional carrier in 1999. He filmed music videos and advertisements. He took charge of assistant directing, post production supervising for both Vizontele and Vizontele TUUBA, also post production supervising of Organize İşler. Hokkabaz is his first big screen movie directing.