CURRENT MISSION

Travel the world with my films or films yet to be made on the go

ABOUT ME

I think each and every couchsurfer has a big burden that he/she was not able to solve it alone in their home towns and decided to hit the road to solve it through real, meaningful friendships one only can find while on the road. In short, through a journey from the "I" in me to the "I" in you! :)

Mine has been a journey through the land and sea into particular areas of the Mediterranean and Latin America where cultures from quite a collection of continents clash. Now I have been based in Mexico City for nearly 2 years by now, which is a different story, but still the same energy prevails here too. Being neighbours with the US is sometimes a plus, sometimes a minus depending on how you take it. But for a filmmaker like me it doesn't hurt to be near to LA! :)

Being born and raised in a city (Istanbul) which was called "mother of all cities" in the ancient world, the last port on the Mediterranean Sea, means that you have to leave it at one time in your life to discover what other cities it gave birth too!

Because, sincerely it may get dangerous after a while because of it spell-bounding, being in an uterus-like beauty about which cannot be talked about while you're still in it, you have to born out of it to get a real life! It's a bigger than life experience to live there, whose real face and story will only be revealed to you when you get on the road to find one of its abandoned children somewhere out on the road. That's me collecting all the fragments out of which I was made of in this giant megapolis of the world now trotting the world in search for what made to come to being!

PHILOSOPHY

Don't just judge life, demand life out of the data that are given to you day in day out!

We are very sensitive and fragile in ways we even don't even know about. We have way too many wounds, but we still keep living. We are a true miracle, indeed!
When we find out the truth of our lives lie in being bloody honest about our wounds and find ways to talk and heal them in a true way (making films helps that a lot! :)) not just making cushions for them, but finding real cures for our wounds. That's what I think traveling is all about: to find real people for real cures for our wounds while we demand "nothingness" to be the change and make light out of darkness together.

Then you start traveling to find those like you, who also got in touch with a profound truth, but couldn't resolve it yet in their homes. 'Coz if you come across with a profound truth in your life and want to sincerely attain it in your daily life, then you may have to go sometimes very far to solve it proportional with your eagerness to connect with the same kind of people who want to fly too with you one day. And we, the CSers, I think are a species of those genuine truth seekers, if we really take it seriously.

After traveling around the Mediterranean and then Latin America for close to 4 years, I noticed the rhythm of the conversations which takes us to places I never thought I could go and discover by myself alone. But those meetings are not as important as to follow through with the things that you have shared then. I think that's the beauty of keep sharing the light, then you have to keep "walking the talk" and be always ready to pack for your next destination when you hear the call.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

After the deliverance of the multicultural environment in Turkey to an ethnocentric one, I wanted to overcome this imposed alienation by realizing a project that would explore being "the other." I resolved to take a trip that would allow me to reconstruct the story I had written in my hometown. Finally, Istanbul is a reflection of what happens in the world, something like as Napoleon said "the capital of the world, if the whole world would be a nation”.

My challenge was to make my debut fiction film where I would be committed to tell the story of the other. Then I whisked through the different realities of the "larger area of ​​influence of the Mediterranean” (of which Istanbul was the last port as I told before). I started from Greece then moved on to Spain and Latin America. In search of a geography and location similar to Istanbul, where all roads end and a new life is blossomed to shoot my debut feature! What a brave heart, no?! :)

Istanbul is not only where I come from, but also it’s a place full of symbolisms for traveling mentally and physically. But to surface those meanings is where the problem lies. You can't do it in Istanbul: it's the place where almost a big part of the concept of the so-called Western civilisation is created, namely the city where the religion of Christianity was created thanks to Konstantin!!

That's why it is probably one of the world’s best kept secrets. Where one would easily learn that "we are One" indeed without needing to travel long distances to find out about it, but yet still have a mission to travel in the physical world too, to testify it in the material world as well. It’s the only city in the world which sits on two continents, like a bridge to eternity, inevitably reminding us that we are all connected.

When I came across with an article on a local newspaper about couchsurfing back home in Istanbul in August 2011, I just decided on the spot that this must be my next film project or a series of films that I should get on with. So I joined the Couchsurfers in order to produce a metaphorical role for myself as a filmmaker in this new environment. I indeed made a feature length hybrid feature while traveling which won awards in film festivals all the way up to Indonesia!

Up to date I already finished 2 feature length hybrid documentaries while traveling with CSers:

1- "The Grenadines Road" while couchsurfing in Spain in 2011-2012 which won an "The Winner of Excellence Award" in a film festival in Indonesia in 2013 and screened at Winter Film Festival of the Cinemateca Uruguaya in August 2014.

2- "When the Ants Dream" (2014) during my travels through Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay. Premiered at MICA Film Festival/Manaus Brazil, January 2015.

It’s a social network for traveling people who visit each other to share their experiences while on the road engaging with the world in a whole new way. My idea of discovering the places and their meanings is through people I meet on the road and the things I share with them, thus creating our little habitats of meaningful encounters: A world with its own sanctions and ways of deliverance, I think.

I screened some of the shorts in the movie at some local CS meetings. This was an experience for me where I found myself making something meaningful out of it than just pretending for a couple of days to be sweethearts to each other :))

So I basically want to walk the talk of love and friendship and what makes it really something that matters so much for us that we might even end up making a feature film about what we found on the road to "getting there".

Making a movie has always been about telling a story. Some movies tell a story and leave you with a feeling. Some tell a story and leave you with a feeling and give you and idea. Some tell a story and leave you with a feeling and give you and idea, and reveal something about yourself and others. Mine (ours) is the latter. :)

You can see some of my films on my Vimeo and Youtube channels and my blog and website:
https://vimeo.com/bozkurtpalanduz
https://youtube.com/BozkurtPalanduz
http://www.filmmaker-travelling-with-miracles.com/direct-cinema-is-where-you-break-the-ice/
www.salvadorfilms.com

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

After making two feature length films about how I managed traveling solo for closely 4 years (4 months of which were on CS) I realised that how much I valued this experience which after all wasn't only meant for a meager couch search all the time.

The knowledge and experience that I gained during my first solo CS journey (mind and body) of how one becomes a completely different person than one was before when you start finding tons of gratifications in small things. The power of insight of how to keep things moving at forward momentum all the time where your creativity to find instant solutions to constant problems that arise as you go, and your sheer motivation to stay on the road propelling both a lot of people around you (and enemies as well sometimes), as you start not to let anyone hold you back from finding the right track when you see one that you must go no matter what, was a great practice to shift my priorities so my work and relationship started to move in more fulfilling directions. Some roads were meant to be walked alone and some weren't.

By default, I have an open heart to share things in an honest way with people around me. And that was initially due to my lack of grasping what is really going on around me in these foreign environments.

"The road" is really something that you shape with the people you meet and decide to cover one part of it together. I think it can get quite superficial sometimes being super nice to each other in the first days in return for a couch or to be invited for a meal, but noticing how people change their attitudes completely, when they were about to leave or don't need a couch anymore. That's what counts most for me actually that you were meant to meet somehow and this proverbial couch has just been a vehicle towards getting to know each other in more profound and meaningful way and you might meet again soon, if you insist following through this unique "desert walk"!

Or it can be something like you meet someone on the street in the middle of the night while walking and talking in a foreign city and it can turn out that this marvelous person was also a CSer like you and then you appreciate the meaning of "sharing a CS experience" more.

Aren't we all "couchsurfing" the world anyway until we will pass on from this illusionary world one day to find our real homes? That's what I like about the symbolic traveling experience as a couchsurfer most: the world is a passing couch anyway, isn't it? We just have to make it a significant one.

Interests

Reading. Writing scripts, comments, diaries. Deciphering ancient texts. Photography. Making films short or feature length. Walking the Talk. Jogging. Swimming. Tennis. Scuba diving. Cruising.

• writing
• photography
• documentaries
• beauty
• festivals
• environment
• walking
• flying
• movies
• reading
• traveling
• blogging
• scuba diving
• christian
• tennis
• track and field
• swimming
• geography
• history
• tourism

Music, Movies, and Books

Classical music in the mornings, sometimes reggea, Muse and Sigur Ros when daydreaming, 70's-80's Turkish folk rock to pop from ABBA, Alan Parsons Project, Doors to David Bowie with splashes of Blond Redhead, Nouvelle Vague, Calla, The Cardigans, Leonard Cohen, A toys Orchestra, Chris Isak, Ladytron, Coco Rosie, Timo Maas, Marc Collin when with wine and friends, if not jamming; Royskopp and Balkan Blues when jogging, movie soundtracks on I-Tunes Radio when sleeping etc.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Casting one of the main leads in my last CS short film at the very last moment online through a CS filmmaker (Adrian Garcia, my DOP for that film) without being even able to audition her, if she is good for the part or not, until she comes directly to the set the other day and turns out to be a very good actress and a perfect cast for the part. Adrian hadn't seen her as well and we were both very surprised and felt how blessed we were, while experimenting to shoot a "made in CS" film in Barcelona.

Teach, Learn, Share

After traveling and sharing a flat of mine own back in Istanbul with total strangers for some time one soon understands that if you won't be able to share the light you have, this light you collected on the road from so many sources may soon burn you out as well. Be receptive and sharing things as well.

I started meeting a lot of people on the road that I have a hard time remembering all their names and incredible stories that I heard after a while. Then I stopped for a while to decide how to control all this giant flow of information before things go out of control due to travel addiction. Making all the time new friendships and relationships as you travel doesn't make sense, if you can't sustain them in the same manner you take them into your system. You may soon loose your perspective of what love and real friendships are as they come and go quickly and in abundance. You have to reach a new level of understanding after this experience. You may one day realise this is a process of being a particle of the Whole and walking to the Whole together.

Everyone seems to be very polite and good manners at first and tell great short stories to impress each other, but you soon realize that nothing really adds up and there is no home for many of these people, but just small rooms where they just end up sharing flats with total strangers in a city like Barcelona, Buenos Aires or Sao Paolo to call a few and where you can meet new people only in bars. This is where I learned to keep my bed a sacred place and not to share it with people with whom I really don't see a real connection, and how to make sense of all these travels that I have been through lately.

Now I am asking myself: Is there an option for us to discover new meanings of life that would otherwise remain alien. May it be by what we share with others without knowing why we shared it in the first place and in what manner we shared it.

I guess there is an option for new life, if you keep a record of them and share it with at least one of your couchsurfing buddies. Then you can have a chance to re-create a world with which one can co-exist anywhere in the world, if one finds the similarities and parallel universes that have this so-called rabbit holes which are made thanks to people like us who can properly share oral history and legends that are symbolic stories which stand for human condition in the eye of the Creator - that is the totality of things that happen to us as we travel in it on a road - transcending time and space to give general guide lines for a better human condition in this world, I think.

What I Can Share with Hosts

A nice chat over a dinner with a good wine or during a walk on a beach or a mountain road. Make a short film together maybe. Write short scripts. Watch a movie together. Cook. Play tennis. Make music (I am somewhat good in drums!)

Countries I’ve Visited

Argentina, Austria, Belize, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Cyprus, Denmark, Ecuador, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay

Countries I’ve Lived In

Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Spain, Turkey, United States, Uruguay

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