Interview : Deniz Gamze Erguven on Mustang

Deniz Gamze Erguven is one of only two female directors nominated for an Academy Award this year, the other is Liz Garbus for Whatever Happened, Miss Simone? Erguven’s film, Mustang, has received a nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. Mustang almost didn’t happen after producers dropped out right before filming. However, Charles Gillibert stepped in and the coming of age film was made. I had a brief chat with Erguven about her Mustang journey and what it’s like to be a filmmaker in France.
Awards Daily: Congratulations on being nominated for Mustang, but the film almost didn’t happen — and now here you are.

Deniz Gamze Erguven: We went from a low to a high.

AD: On that high, how is the experience for you.

DGE: It’s a responsibility. The Foreign Language Oscar goes to a country, and you’ve been chosen by France where I feel like the adopted child. It means a lot to me. I want to be worthy of the trust we’ve been given. So there’s this emotional responsibility. When the nominations came out for me, the pressure was huge. I was relieved.

AD: How did Mustang happen?

DGE: It’s my second film project. I had worked long years on another film, and at the point when I started off I was hungry of everything, about working with actors and picking a film. I tried getting into production with a sense of urgency. Also the subject matter of the film was urgent. It was urgent in every possible way. It took longer than planned. I was hoping to shoot during the Summer of 2013. I had written it in Summer 2012, but the financing took longer than expected. We were ready to shoot by 2014. At that point the producer had completely dropped the film. We later found out it was under-financed and left for dead. We had three days to find another producer. I actually didn’t tell the girls about it.

I had also discovered I was pregnant the week before so it all felt dramatic at that point. Since then, it’s been one straight line. Aside from being postponed for four weeks, then it was a race. I wanted to finish before the baby came. I remember we didn’t even stop for Christmas. We were with the editor, alone in the office with piles of garbage. I was getting bigger and bigger. The baby was born, and we hadn’t finished, so I had my little koala sticking on me, and we went on in post production right until Cannes.

Mustang started running really fast once it was at Cannes. The French distributor released it early on, and we were doing a lot of press.

I was making jokes at the beginning of Cannes that we would show the film on Tuesday, do press on Wednesday, and be has-beens on Thursday. That Thursday never came, and we were doing endless press and it became bigger and we went from doing student magazines, the film was released and we did festivals, the film won lots of awards. Then it was released here and in Europe which meant more travel and more press right up to today, and here we are.

AD: Let’s talk about some of the scenes, some of the scenes are sensitive issues. How did the girl’s families react to the script?

DGE: They were really supportive .There were a few lines of dialogue that they didn’t agree with, but those lines, for me, had to be in the film.

Their families and I were on the same team. The hard part was anyone who could be obstacles, where the content made people feel uneasy.

AD: What’s the reception been in Turkey?

DGE: Very polarized. Some people love it. Critics and journalists have supported the film strongly. Then there are some people who really hate the film and have attacked it strongly, and are very aggressive about it. I received awful messages on a daily basis, and that was quite disturbing. At the beginning, it was “I hate it. Don’t allow it to be seen.” But the more people saw it and the content of the discussion is very close to what’s going on in the film, and people were bothered by it.

AD: And how much was autobiographical?

DGE: A lot of it was. A lot of things are true and happened around me or in my family and were documented for the needs of the script. The reactions of the characters completely transcend that reality.

AD: The girls are wonderful. I saw them earlier, Tugba was telling me how you had met her at the airport and decided to cast her.

DGE: Yes. That’s right.

AD: OK, talk to me about how it is to be a French filmmaker. Is it easier?

DGE: First of all, in France there is the Le Fémis film school which is extremely competitive to get into. It’s like a five-month round. You have one chance in a hundred to get in. I got in. For four years we made one film after another. I feel so grateful. It was the best thing ever.

It’s a great country for cinema. In terms of production, producers are collaborating with filmmakers from all around the world. You have the Cannes Film Festival, which is extremely respectful of the art. Then you have the audience who love watching films in foreign language, it’s a great place to be a cinephile. It’s something very specific to Paris.

In terms of production, I make my way. I understood what you could do. I got it after a while. Mustang is a classic co-European production.

AD: What message should the audience take from Mustang?

DGE: It’s a great thing, that the point of view of Lale is that it’s exotic compared to her male counterparts or people on the other side of the world. It’s great that people get to see the world through the eyes of this 13-year-old girl. Cinema has this power to broaden perspective and generate compassion and other strong feelings for these girls.
The film also has this message to not compromise freedom and that courage pays.