The hidden treasure of our cinema, “Time to Love”, was restored in 4K quality on the 10th anniversary of the death of master director Metin Erksan.
MUBI broke new ground and brought a timeless classic back to life. The hidden treasure of our cinema, TIME TO LOVE, was restored in 4K quality on the 10th anniversary of the death of master director Metin Erksan.
MUBI has restored a great treasure that was built in 1965 and never had the opportunity to distribute and reach the masses. TIME TO LOVE was restored with the help of state-of-the-art software and techniques, under the consultancy of Ahmet Hızarcı, in cooperation with Atlas Post Production, which has signed the most successful restoration projects in Turkey.
Making its World Premiere at the Lumiere Film Festival, one of the film industry’s most important stages dedicated to classical cinema, on Thursday, October 20, TIME TO LOVE will soon be broadcast in more than 190 countries via MUBI and will be presented to moviegoers from all over the world.
Within the scope of the restoration, first of all, physical damages caused by washing, printing and storage conditions were determined. Negatives that became brittle over time were softened temporarily with special chemicals before scanning. 35mm negative film scanned in 4K full frame. Color and brightness settings have been adjusted to the required limits, shadows have been corrected. The stabilization problems of the movie were fixed with special software. Sound, color and manual restoration was carried out over a total of five months.
The introduction credits, which were not included in the original negative of the film, were specially prepared and added to the film as predicted by Metin Erksan, resulting in a complete TIME TO LOVE presentation. With the valuable assistance of Zeynep Özlem Havuzlu and the consultancy of Ahmet Hızarcı, the restoration project was carried out in keeping with the will of Metin Erksan and the traditional texture of 1965, when the film was shot.
Atlas Post Production General Manager Ahmet Hızarcı said the following about the restoration process:
TIME TO LOVE is a film that has suffered the cruelty of time over the past 57 years. Despite all the handicaps in the restoration process, very good results were obtained with a special study for this film. Knowing the features of the film and the director’s understanding of the film helped us a lot in this process. It allowed us to accurately capture the grain structure and color texture. It was also helpful to know the production and natural texture of the period films for the contrast and grayscale of the film. As a result, we succeeded in obtaining a film that was suitable for the black and white texture of the period. We can also say that even when the movie was shown for the first time, it was not watched so cleanly and smoothly. Because the copy presented in the special screenings had scratches caused by the negative and occurred during the screenings. Again, it is possible to say the same things about the sizzling and noises arising from the laboratory conditions of that day in the sound structure of the film. All these problems have been fixed in the best possible way.
Metin Erksan’s student, screenwriter Zeynep Özlem Havuzlu made the following statements:
The importance and privileged structure of the movie SEVMEK Zamanı is defined by the film’s production, direction, content and form inconsistency and uniqueness by looking at the periods in the history of cinema. The film is a timeless masterpiece that opens up to Metin Erksan’s personal and intellectual world. SEVMEK ZAANI, which was shot in 1965, cannot be separated from the productions of its period only with the subject it deals with and the way it handles it; At the same time, the struggle of the film against production and post-production obstacles is worth remembering and learning today. In this sense, it is very meaningful that SEVMEK ZAMANI received the value it deserves today, as it was a film that was wronged, battered, punished and misunderstood by film writers and directors of the cinema industry. Meeting the unique world of Metin Erksan, who is the producer, writer, director and partly the cinematographer of the film, means remembering and realizing that cinema is a matter of culture, art and thought.
The plot of the movie is briefly as follows: Halil (Müşfik Kenter) works as a painter on the island with his master Mustafa (Fadıl Garan). Halil falls in love with the woman painting hanging on the wall of one of the empty mansions they painted. He enters the mansion every day and watches the painting. Meral (Sema Özcan), the daughter of the owner of the mansion, comes to the mansion one day with her two friends and finds Halil watching his painting. Meral believes that Halil is in love with her and wants to reciprocate this love. However, Halil is not in love with Meral, but with her painting.
