ABOUT
Filmbüfe has been established by Belmin Söylemez and Haşmet Topaloğlu in 2009. The company focuses on producing feature films as well as documentaries and shorts. Filmbüfe also works as a sales&distribution company and has rights to a lineup of documentaries and short films. The company has strong connections with independent film scene in Turkey.
BELMİN SÖYLEMEZ
Born in Istanbul. She worked as copy writer, editor, producer for companies like ARD German TV (Istanbul Office) and BBA (Independent Press Agency Istanbul). She made music videos and promotion films as a director and producer.
Her short films and documentaries received a number of awards in national and international festivals, and were shown on TV Channels such as ARTE, SVT (Sweden), YLE (Finland) SBS (Australia). Her films have also participated in exhibitions such as “Call me Istanbul”, ZKM Karlsruhe, Germany and `Free Kick`- the 9th Istanbul Biennial.
She is also a member of the Filmist, an independent film makers collective based in İstanbul.
HAŞMET TOPALOĞLU
Born in 1968 he started working as a TV-reporter in 1993. He worked as reporter, producer, presenter for different national tv-channels over a period of ten years. He also wrote film critics for daily papers.
Since 2003 he produces and directs independent documentary films.
His films include “Five Construction Masters”, a behind-the-scenes documentary for the future film “Istanbul Tales”; “34 Taxi”, a film about the taxi drivers of Istanbul, screened on Arte in 2007.
In 2007 he produced and co-directed the feature documentary ‘What a Beautiful Democracy!’ which participated in national and international festivals including Istanbul Film Festival 2008, Sarajevo Film Festival 2008, Göteborg Film Festival 2009, and won the critics prize by the Turkish Association of Film Critics, in Bodrum International Film Festival, Sept 2008. The film was also screened in ARTE in January 2010, under the title of “Démocratie au Féminin”.
He is a member of Filmist, an independent film makers collective based in İstanbul.