Turkish tabloids made a self-promotion on this year’s most successful film
Paper Lives / Kağıttan Hayatlar
The journalist of the publication Hürriyet Orkun Un decided to promote himself on the most successful Turkish film of this year, Paper Lives / Kağıttan Hayatlar, and it seems that he succeeded. He didn’t hesitate to use unfounded accusations.
The journalist of the publication Hürriyet Orkun Un reported that Çağatay Ulusoy stole the idea of creating the film Paper Lives / Kağıttan Hayatlar from his friend Umut Evirgen. Umut also made a film about paper collectors Ben Bir Denizim. It tells the story of a young man collecting cardboard with his father, who falls in love with a woman. The plots of the films are completely different, but they tell about garbage collectors, moreover, both films show a cardboard warehouse and carton collectors’ trolleys. The journalist reports that a black cat ran between friends.
Note that this is not the first film about a difficult life on the streets, which is made by world filmmakers. It is hardly possible to tell the story of the garbage collectors using the rich areas of the Turkish capital or the luxurious mansions.
The journalist does not provide any information that could prove the identity of the script or the use of original ideas. He only hints and assumes, proceeding from the fact that both films are devoted to the same topic (according to the same logic, the creators of the series Eşkıya Dünyaya Hükümdar Olmaz could sue the producers of Çukur, because the both projects are devoted to mafia). In addition, as far as we know, Mr. Evirgen did not put forward any claims against the creators of the movie, it seems that he, unlike the journalist speculating on rumors, has no sufficient legal grounds for accusations of this kind.
Unfortunately, the success of the film Paper Lives in Turkey and in the world immediately attracted a lot of people who wanted to promote on it and on the name of Çağatay Ulusoy. Now people will want to watch Umut Evirgen’s film in order to find similarities, and it doesn’t matter that there are no similarities, because the goal will be achieved: a movie that no one has ever heard of will arouse interest. And most importantly, the name of the journalist is now on everyone’s lips. Maybe this is the goal of all these fuss about nothing.
