Hayal Hayati

Hayal Hayati is a director and producer who has spent years on the Turkish Board of Censors, and his shifting position between filmmaker and censor makes him a revealing figure in the account of Turkey’s film industry. At the Pelür Bar where Füsun Received an Acting Offer, he presents censorship as both a professional obstacle and a source of personal amusement, even as his own film is caught in its reach.

Identity and Place in the Film World

A regular at the Pelür Bar where Füsun Received an Acting Offer, Hayal Hayati is known among its habitués by a nickname meaning “Dream,” a reference to how often he talks about films he hopes to make. He says he accepted a place on the Turkish Board of Censors partly to drive his colleagues to distraction. The joke is characteristic: Hayal Hayati treats the board’s authority lightly in conversation, although that authority can determine whether a film reaches an audience at all.

He draws Füsun into these conversations by seeking her appraisal of his proposed films and asking her to star in one. He presents his requests as instinctive and sincere, and his repeated attention to her establishes a personal as well as professional dimension to his visits. Their exchanges take place while Kemal and Feridun are trying to get their first production, Blue Rain, under way at Lemon Films.

Beliefs and Use of Censorship

Hayal Hayati describes himself as a fervent supporter of democracy and freedom of expression, yet argues that the state must prevent cinema from misleading the public. In his account, filmmakers can work relatively freely only so long as they avoid a wide range of subjects and interpretations the authorities consider unacceptable. The contradiction is not merely between his professed principles and the restrictions he enforces: he also acknowledges that censors have developed personal agendas, banning work because it annoys or offends them.

He recounts earlier decisions with evident relish. Among the films he says he banned were stories about a hapless security guard, a mother who falls in love with another man, and a truant child; each was judged to threaten a social institution or value. The examples make censorship seem less like a consistent application of rules than an unpredictable power exercised through the board’s own judgments. Hayal Hayati is both a critic of the system’s caprice and someone who has participated in it.

He nevertheless considers cuts preferable to an outright ban. In his view, a film altered to satisfy the board may still make sense to viewers and earn back its production costs; a total prohibition can destroy that possibility. This distinction helps explain why he supports a two-stage review, beginning with approval of a screenplay’s subject and content. In practice, the process also produces an elaborate market of intermediaries and permits, a system Kemal and Feridun must navigate while developing Blue Rain.

His Film and the Board’s Reversal

After Hayal Hayati’s term on the board ends, the first film he directs is itself banned. He says the costly production was rejected over a dinner scene involving a family quarrel about the salad, along with two other scenes of conflict within families. He insists that these incidents were drawn innocently from his own life; what angers him most is that former colleagues on the board have turned against him.

His account includes a night when he and his oldest friend on the board fought after going out together. Neither filed a complaint, and the police encouraged them to make peace. Yet the former friendship does not spare his film. To secure another review and avoid financial ruin, Hayal Hayati removes nearly every family quarrel the censors might regard as demeaning to the family. The altered version passes, although one family-conflict scene remains. The reversal sharpens the irony of his position: the censor who once took pleasure in banning other people’s films must submit his own work to the same discretionary authority.

Füsun and the Acting Opportunity

Hayal Hayati’s professional interest in Füsun becomes consequential when the filming season approaches. At the beginning of May, he visits Lemon Films with news that a young, semi-famous actress has been hospitalized after violence by her partner, and presents the situation as an opening for a cultivated newcomer such as Füsun. Feridun, aware of Kemal’s misgivings about the commercial film world, courteously refuses the offer. Kemal believes Feridun may not have mentioned it to Füsun at all.

The episode links Hayal Hayati’s recurring invitations to a real opportunity, but also reveals the limits of his influence: he can bring a prospect to the filmmakers, while Feridun decides whether to pursue it. His role in the story thus crosses the paths of censorship and production with the film ambitions of Füsun and the anxieties of Kemal, without resolving whether she would have accepted the offer.