Phases of Matter

Phases of Matter

Turkey | 2020 | Documentary | 71' | Turkish

Phases of Matter is set in Istanbul’s venerable Cerrahpasa Hospital, a unique, state-run teaching hospital in Turkey, where the filmmaker himself was born and where his father has long worked as a doctor. It is a human, curious look at a place where life and death, levity and severity, poetry and confrontation go side by side.

This immersive documentary passes through the hospital’s darkened corridors from the physical spaces of morgue, operating and observation rooms to the virtual spaces of vital-signs monitors and X-ray machines. With a formal sense of camera movement that simultaneously embraces the unplanned and unexpected, Tortum crafts a vision pitched between the eerily posthuman and the urgently humanist.

Director: Deniz Tortum

Director of Photography: Deniz Tortum

Görüntü Yönetmeni: Deniz Tortum

Editing: Sercan Sezgin

Sound Design: Ernst Karel, Yalın Özgencil

Music: Alican Çamcı

Color: James Norman

Producers: Anna Maria Aslanoglu, Öykü Canlı, Aslı Erdem

Co-producer: Fırat Sezgin

Deniz Tortum

Deniz Tortum was born in 1989 in Istanbul. His films and media works have been screened in various festivals, including Venice Film Festival, SXSW, IFFR, IDFA, Hot Docs and Dokufest. In 2019, he was selected among the ‘25 New Faces of Independent Cinema’ by Filmmaker Magazine. His feature-length documentary ‘Maddenin Halleri’ (Phases of Matter) premiered internationally in January 2020 at Rotterdam Film Festival, Bright Future category, and received The Best Documentary Award in Antalya and İstanbul Film Festivals. His latest short film, ‘Our Ark,’ co-produced with Kathryn Hamilton, premiered internationally in November 2021 at IDFA, and received The Best Short Film Award at Istanbul Film Festival. He is currently working on ‘Shadowtime’, the virtual reality film produced by the Institute of Time, and ‘Flux’, co-produced with Reha Erdem.

* All events are free. Participation is limited to 120 people and the entrance invitations can be obtained 1 hour before the event from Akbank Sanat Info Desk. Events will be held in Turkish.