Film Festivals

Off Set 2018 TIFF Portrait Series: Saf

Published on September 26, 2018

Filmmaker Ali Vatansever arrived at TIFF (a Discovery programme selection) with his sophomore film — a feature that our Nicholas Bell suggested “should be classified as a moral fable of our times and yet there’s nothing fablelike about it.” In a backdrop of construction and featuring the collapse of more than just family homes, Turkish entry Saf sees a husband and wife team in thesps Erol Afsin and Saadet Isil Aksoy (she was featured in Semih Kaplanoglu’s Egg and Milk) driven to the brink of desperation. We had the opportunity to photograph the filmmaker and his two stars.

Ali Vatansever, SAF / Photo © Marie France L’Ecuyer IONCINEMA

Saadet Isil Aksoy, SAF / Photo © Marie France L’Ecuyer IONCINEMA

Eric Lavallée

Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).

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Film Festivals

Off Set 2018 TIFF Portrait Series: Saf