Muezzin

Colour, HD CAM
Austria, 2009, 80 min
WP – World premiere
Section: Documentary Films in Competition

Synopsis

The sound of the muezzin’s voice calling the faithful to their morning prayers slowly awakens the 11 million inhabitants of Istanbul. Despite the fact that many muezzins have been replaced by CD players and speakers mounted atop minarets, there is still great interest in this profession. Each year, Turkey hosts a prestigious competition for the best muezzin, and the Austrian filmmaker followed its dramatic progress from two perspectives: Habil Öndes, one of the competition judges and a specialist in the call to prayer, offers an analytical approach, while the competition between his two students, Halit Aslan and Isa Aydin, to advance to the prestigious Pan-Turkish finals, introduces an element of tension into the story. Brameshuber’s film investigates the phenomenon of individuality within Islamic culture and seeks an answer to the question of whether a muezzin can be considered as a kind of artist or merely as an instrument of God.

About the director

Sebastian Brameshuber (b. 1981, Gmünden, Austria) has been studying at Vienna’s University of Applied Arts since 2003. He began shooting experimental shorts and videos in 2004 as part of Fordbrothers, a group he founded with Tomas Draschan. Brameshuber lives and works in Vienna and Istanbul. Selected filmography: Blood Sample (2004), Preserving Cultural Traditions in a Period of Instability (2004), Everything’s Gone Green (2005), and Keynote (2006).