Helen's Blog /

Presented in part at the Turkish Pavilion reception at the Cannes Film Festival, Lost Songs of Anatolia, on a background of clips of peasant musicians from Eastern Turkey featured a modern rock quartet accompanying beautiful authentic shots taken on the spot.

The effect was surrealistic and highly original.

A musical voyage among exotic places and people of Anatolia, unique host of ancient civilizations, empires as well as mythologies and glory of 10 millennia.

The fruit of 350 hours of footage, more than 40,000 km traveled and 133 recorded live performances, Lost Songs of Anatolia may be the first example of its kind as a documentary-musical film. The cultural riches of Anatolia are sung in authentic performances recorded live on location spontaneously. With the modern arrangements made, and in comparable musical is formed.

While this journey is showing how music and culture is derived from life, geography and work, an exploration of Anatolia’s versatile cultures takes place on a basis of music, dance and rituals. The staggering environment surrounding these people and influencing their lifestyles contribute the lyric flow of the film.

Lost Songs of Anatolia appeared on the big screen for the first time in the 27th International Istanbul Film Festival.

It was one of the most highly anticipated movies of the festival and tickets for both the premiere and additional screening were sold out shortly after they were made available. The movie also received close interest from representatives of various international film festivals abroad in preliminary contacts.

Following the premiere, "Nezih Unen Group", comprised of the following artists, took stage at Babylon:

Alp Ersönmez : Bass
Mert Önal : Drums
Sarp Maden : Guitar
Serhat Ersöz : Keyboards
Osman Akta; : Pipe
zzet Kl : Percussion
Nezih Ünen : Saxophone, keyboards

The concert was a whole other excitement as "Nezih Unen Group's" live music accompanied on stage the authentic performances from the movie shown on screen. Among guest artists were Kubat, Aynur Hashas and Mehmet Demir, who also appears in the movie.

The concerts will continue, and the movie will be in theaters this fall.

"The day we started this film, I have told to my crew that: "There is no scenario to follow. It will be written by Anatolia". And so it happened! In this land of tired and worn out cultures remaining from the ancient civilizations, my way of doing this film had been spontaneity and serving people telling their stories via songs, rituals and dances.

At the beginning, my motivation was more musical oriented rather than documentary. Having a reasonable music career before directing this film, I have always been thinking of the potential in Anatolian cultures for creating new musical styles. So, my first intention was to make a contemporary, but eccentric musical film, based on the authentic performances of Anatolian people.

But during the travels we made in Anatolia, I was so impressed by the cultural heritage and the lifestyles of those people that, the project which I was to shape started shaping me instead, and a documentary style started to influence the first idea. So, the final product came out to be a unique documentary-musical."

Nezih Ünen

Was born and lived in Bursa until age of 18, when he moved to Istanbul for collage. He has always been interested in music and photography during school years. While he was a student in Bosphorus University School of Engineering, he took place in several photography exhibitions and has been in music and drama activities.

After graduation, he decided to make his living by music. He always had interest in creating new ideas rather than expertise on a kind. The most common aspect of his works has been uniting the music of different types and cultures in his own way.

In his 20 years of music career as a composer, producer, arranger and singer, he produced a number of music videos and made music for film. These experiences gave him the courage to start his first film Lost Songs of Anatolia.