A note appearing on the screen at the beginning of some movies creates some excitement, some anxiety, and some curiosity in the audience. This note is a reminder that “This movie is based on a true story.” The audience who sees this note focuses more on the movie. The fact that the story is true attracts his attention. But the interesting thing is that almost no movie with this note is based on a good story.

In the early 2000s, there was a television program in Turkey called “Like A Movie“, hosted by internationally renowned Turkish film director and producer Sinan Çetin. This program sought out people who had not seen each other for many years for any reason and brought them together with their parents or siblings. When the person looking for his relative joined the program, he did not know whether the person he was looking for was found or not.

Both he and the audience were waiting with bated breath to see whether the wanted person would come from behind the opened door. There were such life stories that even Sinan Çetin, the presenter of the program, could not hold back his tears when he saw the real events he witnessed in the program. At one point in the program he said: Even if you use your imagination to the fullest as a filmmaker, your mind will be incapable of producing the events we witness in real life.

This is a country of immigrants. Millions of people in this country are refugees who had to leave their country for any reason. There are so many stories we hear from our neighbors, our classmates, and the people we met here about their struggle to reach this country that it is impossible not to be impressed.

Let’s count one of the events happening in the world. There are so many dramatic stories… Some families and babies drowned in the Meriç River on the Turkish-Greek border while escaping from the regime in Turkey. Among them are my friends and acquaintances.

There are disasters where hundreds of people drowned in the Mediterranean at a time because 50 people got on a boat with a capacity of 10 people and 700-800 people got on a ship with a capacity of 100 people while trying to pass from African countries to Europe. And each of them has a story. Refugees are not the only ones drowning in the Mediterranean. It is also humanity…

No adult in this world is completely innocent in the face of these events. Each of us is a part of this world we breathe. Even being insensitive to the real human stories taking place in this world and not making any effort or searching for what we can do to end them makes each of us conscientiously responsible. The cause of every human-related problem is humans. If there is a solution to these issues, it will be by human hands.

The events we watch on the screens as if they were someone else’s story are actually our own story. In other words, it is the story of man himself. In fact, each of our lives is based on a true story. The statistics given about people are apparently based on numbers, but every number we see as a number is actually a person. How important it is to feel the thought “that person could have been me too” in the face of the events we watch like someone else’s story. This kind of thinking and empathy will put us in the mood to contribute to the solution.

In short, even if you close your eyes, everything you see on the screen is actually your story, my friend. That’s you, that’s me… Let’s stop the movies based on true stories from being dramatic. Let’s add hope and beauty to them. Because the real story of humanity doesn’t have to be dramatic.

by Osman Oszoy