Tickets available on 2/24/2026 at 10:00am
DIRECTOR PRESENT
93 min. / 2025 / with English subtitles
Cast: Tarhan Karagöz, Nalan Kuruçim,
Jale Arıkan, Ercan Kesal
DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT
"I am infinitely obsessed with the problematique of personal identity. ‘I’m not Him’ (2013) was about a man changing his identity voluntarily and now ‘Idea’ tells the story of a man who is treated as someone else. At our times, there is a constant shift between phantasm and certainty; the distinction between the two is blurred. Irrationality becomes the norm; the ‘reality’ changes shape and banality of insanity overrules. The expression of ‘Kafkaesque’ is not an extraordinary adjective anymore, but a regular and concrete part of ordinary life. The main character in ‘Idea’ lacks any political understanding of this madness as its victim, and his ludicrous ‘fate’ represents a society seized by such a lunacy. The allegory of depicting
contemporary injustices is embedded throughout the plot. The film has a deep and delicately humorous approach, which intends to capture such a ‘situation’ and expresses also its painful irony." - Tayfun Pirselimoğlu
SYNOPSIS
Kemal works as a watchman in an empty villa that belongs to a shady businessman, on the outskirts of the city. He occasionally goes to the city on a public bus. One night, while he’s coming back to the villa, a man gets on the bus, sits nearby, then leaves a book on his seat and gets off. Kemal aimlessly turns the pages of the book titled IDEA, and puts it back. His life turns into a total hell after that night. He is accused of an undefined crime and all his attempts to understand the situation are in vain. Thereafter, he is treated as the leader of a secret organization called IDEA and he finds himself gradually turning into that person.
SELECTED FESTIVALS AND AWARDS
TAYFUN PİRSELİMOĞLU
Director, Writer
Tayfun Pirselimoğlu (1959, Trabzon) graduated from the Middle East Technical University in Ankara. He later moved to Vienna to study painting at Hochschule für Angewandte Kunst (Academy of Applied Arts). He held various exhibitions in different cities of the world, including Vienna, Istanbul, Ankara, Budapest, Tallinn, and many others.
Tayfun Pirselimoğlu started his career in the film industry as a scriptwriter. He directed his first short film Dayım (My Uncle) in 1999 and then Il Silenzio e d'Oro (Silent is Golden) in 2002; received numerous international awards. In 2002, he also directed his first feature film Hiçbiryerde (Innowhereland) and received many awards. His trilogy of "Conscience and Death" including Rıza (2007), Pus (Haze, 2009) and Saç (Hair, 2010) was followed by O Ben Değilim (I Am Not Him, 2013), and Yol Kenarı (Sideway, 2017). His latest feature film Kerr (2021) was awarded in many international festivals and selected as the nominee from Türkiye for the Best International Feature at the 95th Academy Awards.
Pirselimoğlu is one of the founders of the art initiative Akademie Genius where he has delivered lectures on scriptwriting, cinema and painting. He is also the author of seven novels and three story books. He received 2024 Cevdet Kudret Literature Award with his novel, "Cerrah".
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