"Hysteria", interview with the director Mehmet Akif Büyükatalay

Director Mehmet Akif Büyükatalay brings to the Berlin International Film Festival his new feature film "Hysteria", an intense thriller set within a film crew on the set, where an accident becomes a fuel for dangerous misunderstanding. We talk with the director on the various issue the film brings to surface, from vulnerability and the fear of strangers, to racism and xenofobia.The Inspiration came from a series of xenophobic acts happened in Germany recently "Hysteria" starts on a film set where a criminal arson is recreated for the shooting. This was a real fact happened in Germany as a violent gesture of xenophobia against immigrants, who were German citizens. Mehmet Akif Büyükatalay is deeply interested in this development of German society, as he explains in our talk. The misinterpretation of religion and faith Mehmet Akif Büyükatalay chose a simple and accidental fact ( burning a Quran in a reconstructed arson) as the element to explain and depict the enormous misconception fo religion through strict unconditional faith. Art should not be influenced by this misconception, but instead it is.