PHASES OF MATTER

PHASES OF MATTER (MADDENİN HALLERİ), 2020
Turkey | HDD, Color, 70’ | Turkey
Director: Deniz Tortum

Deniz Tortum decides to make a film in response to the news of the collapse of the Cerrahpaşa Faculty of Medicine, where her father has been a doctor for thirty years and where she spent most of her childhood and youth years. Phases of Matter portrays the daily life at the hospital, with snippets of a doctor who reads poems to his patient, scenes from operations, nurses on their lunch breaks or the imam who works at the morgue, while also looking at material elements other than the human body such as medical equipment, and invites the viewers into a hypnotic session in the cold corridors of the hospital. At times poetic and at times terrifying, this is a testimony of life-and-death that only cinema can make possible. Phases of Matter won the Best Documentary Award at the 39th Istanbul Film Festival and the 57th Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival.