Interview with Producer Brian Felsen - by Ann Morrow, Metroland Newspaper, 12/99
"I've never been politically active, but it happened to be the 75th anniversary of the Turkish Republic," Felsen says, recounting how he and his wife, Elif Savas, got caught up in the tide of Turkish history. "We were living in Turkey when they were having the anniversary celebration, and we marched in the pro-secular parade. Here we were, with tens of thousands of people holding up candles and pictures of national hero Ataturk and shouting, "Turkey will remain secular! And "Turkey will not fall under Koranic law!"
"The idea of a militarily-imposed democracy is fascinating and strange and confusing." So fascinating in fact, that Felsen and his wife made a documentary about it. COUP, their digital-format documentary, incorporates rare archival footage as it examines the collision between military authority and civil action in Turkey.
Although Felsen was fascinated by Turkey's complex political turmoil, he was inspired by the level of involvement of the Turkish population: "The people are so politically active, it's amazing. We think these countries are more naïve than America, but actually, it's the opposite. The people are much more aware of the events around them. It was both exhilarating and a culture shock."
"…People I talked to loved the army and were hoping the military would come and have a coup. The people were rooting for the military to overthrow the prime minister they had voted for and impose their own guy, because he would be more democratic. I thought that was an oxymoron. It's very odd that a democracy the US supports would need the army to protect it. We had been there almost a year before I realized what an amazing story was occurring...the army basically said to the ruling religious party, 'You'll step down, or what happened during the last three coups will happen again.' The Refah Party did step down, and the army appointed a new prime minister, but there are still a lot of Fundamentalist mayors in power."
Most of the couple's success in obtaining never-before-seen military footage and high-ranking interviewees was due to timing: "Turkey has a multiparty system, and the political climate can swing wildly. In 1998, we had a unique opportunity. The '97 coup was a coup by memorandum, and there wasn't much street violence. A lot of the people involved in the events leading up to the 1980 coup were ready to talk who hadn't been willing before. Some of the extremists were no longer afraid, although one of the columnists who speaks in the film was car-bombed to death shortly after. And the people who were involved in the 1960 coup are older now- we were lucky to get them while they're still with us. One of the generals in the film died of a heart attack about two months ago."
But what Felsen is most proud of is the film's objectivity: "Elif and I shared the goal of not imposing our points of view on the picture. One of the questions the film raises is whether an abstract American democratic ideal can be globally transported. I think we were true to our goal of telling a complex story as an extended debate."