Directed by Hasan Özgen & Kurtuluş Özgen
According to filmmaker Kurtuluş Özgen, ‘Today's concept of ‘civilization’ is an inheritance from colonialism that divided the world into ‘civilized’ and ‘barbarians’. This ideology allowed global imperialism to invade, plunder, and enslave people in all parts of the world.’ The documentary ‘Mom, the Turks are Coming’, directed by Kurtuluş and his father, doyen filmmaker Hasan Özgen, offers a history of the Turks in a way that examines the historical roots of the concepts of ‘civilized/settled’ vs ‘barbarian/nomadic’. The film shows how states arose through the cooperation and conflict between nomadic tradition and settled property-owning societies, discussing the legacy of the Turks through the society-state structures they created in Anatolia, such as the Seljuks and the Ottomans.
Kurtuluş Özgen (b.1971) has produced non-fiction films and has been a jury member in various film festivals and photography competitions. His films have been shown in more than 70 festivals, including those in New York, Boston, Toronto, Montreal, Mexico City, Rio de Janeiro, London, Lisbon, Weimar and Thessaloniki, and he has won 15 international and national awards. Özgen is currently an Associate Professor at AHBVÜ Faculty of Fine Arts, Department of Photography and Video, where he continues with his academic studies on documentary cinema, cinema of thought, cinematography, video art and new media.
HASAN ÖZGEN (b. 1947) graduated from the Air Force Academy in 1968. In 1972, he was dismissed from the Air Force for 'political reasons'. He worked at the TRT News Center between 1974-1982. In 1983, together with Suha Arın, he established MTV A.Ş., and he founded his own agency in 1987. Through his initial involvement with TV and cinema at TRT, Özgen evolved largely into a producer of documentary films, although he also worked as a cameraman, cinematographer, screenwriter and director. Özgen is a founding and board member of ÇEKÜL-Foundation for the Protection and Promotion of Environmental and Cultural Values, a member of the Advisory Board of TKB-Historical Cities Association, a founding member of BSB-Documentary Filmmakers Association and a member of TGC-Turkish Journalists Association. In 2013, he was the recipient of a TRT Honor Award.
