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DECADENCE

SOLO PROJELER DANISMANLIK LTD. (34SOLO) - as PROD

Drama - Development 2021

DECADENCE takes us on a journey where we watch in awe founding of pillars of our mainstream culture today in marginal undergrounds of Berlin in 1920s, San Francisco in 1960s, and London in 1980s. Our tour guide will be a sufi, a satirist and a rebel, the reed flute player Neyzen Tevfik of Istanbul

- Year of production
- 2021
- Genres
- Drama, Documentary, Historical
- Countries
- USA, UNITED KINGDOM, GERMANY, TURKEY
- Languages
- TURKISH, ENGLISH, GERMAN
- Budget
- 1 - 3 M$
- Duration
- 60 mn
- Synopsis
- ‘Decadence is the result of seeking existence in non-existence, in nothingness and in defiance, and when these aren’t possible, in irony, which in a sense is a way of ignoring it. Decadence creates itself an underground in any and every age. Sometimes the underground draws closer aboveground, the curtain between the two is lifted and the underground becomes visible to us all.’
  The film DECADENCE takes us on a journey where we witness Berlin of the 1920s when the curtain is pulled slightly apart, to the San Francisco of the 1960s, when the curtain is torn away, and to 1980s in London when the curtain is seized to close. Our guide on this journey is satirist, sufi and rebel reed flute player Neyzen Tevfik.
  Just as Neyzen took the young people who enrolled in the “Wandering Dervish School” from tavern to tavern, teaching them to drink raki, to listen to the reed flute, to roll a joint and to observe the world in awe, throughout the film he will act as our guide through these different periods and places.
  At first we go to Neyzen Tevfik’s funeral in 1953. Here we see all the characters who bring visibility to the past century’s underground, who will display different aspects of decadence later on in the film – and all of whom Neyzen managed to squeeze into a single lifetime.
  Then we go to the 1940s, when Neyzen wanders in the depth of decadence but also reaches the very height of aboveground. The years when he had a room in the insane asylum of Bakırköy, for which he had his own key. People who witnessed his life in those years present a cross section of his now legendary life.
  Our first astral journey takes us to Berlin in the 1920s, referred to in encyclopedias as the capital of decadence. A tiny space where the underground overflows into aboveground and where a very high level of intellectual production is reached. Then we come to the 1960s, when the rebellion grew and the underground assaulted the aboveground. Joplin screamed and Ginsberg howled. Neyzen, who is denounced hundreds of times for not flinching from the truth and finally gains his freedom by acting crazy, will of course take part in this rebellion. Neyzen catches his breath one last time at dinner with Quentin Crisp in the 80s. And the curtain draws to a close, possibly never to open again.
  When we return to 1953, as always, Neyzen the great master of irony, has quietly avoided the ending reserved for him and has organized himself a funeral in his own style.