Turkish director Umit Koreken makes his debut with an impactful film, Mavi Bisiklet (Blue Bicycle). After traveling the world, the film has now come to India and is being screened at the Jio MAMI 18th Mumbai Film Festival. Umit Koreken talks about the inspiration behind the movie and Turkish cinema as a whole.

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Your film was screened in the Half Ticket section for kids, how was your experience? 

Blue Bicycle has travelled to a lot of film festivals around the world and each time it has been an exciting experience. To be here as a part of MAMI is a new and thrilling experience for us. The fact that the film is travelling to all these festivals shows that the story deals with universal issues and is something that people can connect to, regardless of the place or country.

Coming to the festival, I joined the screening of the Blue Bicycle yesterday at the Half Ticket section with children and it was a great experience.  Since I love children, I completely enjoyed watching the film with them. They had so many questions and the entire atmosphere was wonderful.

Blue Bicycle has won numerous awards back home, can you talk a little about your inspiration behind the film?

The film has four different stories and all of them are inspired by real life. One of the stories is inspired by producer and scriptwriter Nursen Cetin Koreken’s childhood. I have also taken inspiration from my own childhood. The other stories are inspired by incidents and news reports that happened around us. The film is a struggle against the injustice that takes place in the society.

Nursen and I are interested in human stories and also issues dealing with children. Moreover, we don’t want to concentrate only on our culture but make films that people all around the world can connect to. We are extremely proud that the Blue Bicycle is travelling and being accepted in so many different cultures because we aim to make movies that touch people’s hearts.

How would you describe Turkish cinema, are there any predominant themes visible in films?

Turkey cinema is extremely rich and diverse. One of the advantages is the geographical location since Antalya is a place where you will see a number of cultures, it is a place were a lot of stories are conceived.