Diverse Voices
‘Diverse Voices’ is a project developed by Wellington UNESCO City of Film to uncover some of the region’s diverse storytelling talent.
Visual: Filmmaker Laura Yilmaz sits in a dark room with studio lights on her. She is wearing a black singlet with a sheer shirt overtop. It has little black and white ruffles. Her hair is dark brown and short. Throughout the interview, we switch from one camera angle to another, where the camera is zoomed to focus on her chest upward, with her head being the focal point. The other is zoomed out more, showing a table with interesting objects, such as a pink spiky ball, teapots, oranges, and candles. A hand places a card on a silver tray with her name on it.
Audio: I can’t quite fully grasp with both hands... either side of this cultural identity.
Visual:
Audio: My name is Laura Yilmaz. Well, I’m an art director, an animator, and an animation director.
I am originally from the US, Boston. My background is that my father is from Turkey. He was an immigrant to America, and I had this kind of semi-first-generation experience.
I would say, growing up in America. I grew up in a very, white, Irish Catholic place. I always felt very different and very outside of the prevailing context. I felt like this kind of swarthy, little weirdo in this sea of blonde faces.
Interviewer: You said it was almost exactly like the intro in ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding’.
Laura: Yeah, exactly. Like, you know, watching that film, I remember feeling that there was a lot of familiarity with that experience. You grow up thinking that you are of a particular culture, in my case, Turkish, and as you grow up, you realise, actually... you’re not really part of that culture either.
And there’s a little bit of a displacement and a feeling that you’re living in this kind of liminal space. There was a different language being spoken in my house. There was different food being cooked and eaten.
When I was about five years old, my grandmother came over from Turkey to live with us and helped take care of us. As my mother transitioned back into work. My grandmother was a very Turkish village woman and presented as such. And it was quite a shock, I think, to a lot of the other neighbourhood kids.
You know, I remember being on the school bus, pulling up to my house and just having this feeling of dread as my... as my poor wonderful grandmother would come out of the house to meet me, you know, with her head scarf and her skirts and all these things.
And I could see the way the other kids looked at her.
Looking back on it, I wish I had a stronger voice. At that point, they would openly make comments to me about her and about myself. I always withered under that.
Visual:
Audio: I come from screen-based animation and linear screen-based animation, but in more recent years, I’ve been moving into games, both in my personal work and professionally.
The most recent project that I have been working on started as quite a biographical piece. It was pulled very much from the experience of my own grandmother.
She was married at a very young age. She was about 15, when she got married to a man who was almost 40. She was his second wife. She was, as women in this context around the world are, she was a mother and she was a housewife. And she was seen and treated as ‘less than’ for her whole life.
I think I was very interested in trying to bring this sort of narrative into the space of video games. Uh, which are a medium that, uh, I grew up with, but I often feel like didn’t really grow up with me.
The way narrative operates in the game space, and in the interaction interactive space is very, very different. And it carries an enormous set of new challenges in trying to figure that out.
Visual:
A clip of card paper shows, written on it the credits. These are written below:
Laura is one of six innovators from the Wellington region interviewed for a documentary about diversity, innovation, and sustainability in Wellington’s film industry.
The Wellington UNESCO City of Film project is called ‘Diverse Voices: Making Screen Work Different’. Pachali Brewster directs and produces the project with help from facilitators and Victoria University of Wellington’s Missy Molloy and Raqi Syed.
Material for the documentary has come from a hui featuring six local storytelling talents, including Laura, around the central question: “How can we make screen work different?”
Laura, an animation and art director is originally from the United States after her father immigrated from Turkey.
In her professional career, she has collaborated with many top global animation and motion design studios. Her work was recognised at the ADC Awards, A-List Hollywood Awards, Telly Awards, and shortlisted at the Clio Awards.
Her award-winning personal short films have been screened at top film and animation festivals around the world. While in the games space, Laura is an alum of the Sundance Institute’s New Frontier Story Lab and the Swedish indie games accelerator programme Stugan. She serves on the Visual Art Jury for the prestigious GDC Independent Games Festival awards.
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Now living in Wellington with her husband and child, Laura’s recent parenthood has prompted her to reflect on the experiences of generations of women in her own family. It’s the inspiration behind her latest gaming project.
Her grandmother is the central influence of the story. She grew up in an extremely rural, poor background in central Turkey and was, as Laura says, seen and treated as less than for her whole life.
“I was very interested in exploring this kind of narrative in the gaming and interactive space. Shining a light on women’s domestic life and its tragically mundane traumas that have historically defined, and in most places in the world, continue to define the female experience.
“I’ve become an especially passionate believer in the need for diverse voices and outsider perspectives in games. An industry persistently plagued by its (well-deserved) reputation for producing work by and for an overwhelmingly young, male, and heteronormative in-group.”
Growing up in Boston gave Laura her own “semi-first-generation experience”.
“I grew up in a very white Irish catholic place. I always felt very different and very outside of the prevailing context. I felt like this kind of swarthy little weirdo in this sea of blonde faces.”
She likens her experience to that of the film ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding’.
“Watching that film there was a lot of familiarity. Like so many kids who grow up in first-generation immigrant households, you grow up thinking that you’re of a part culture. In my case Turkish, but as you grow up you realise you’re not really part of that culture either, and there’s a little bit of a displacement and a feeling that you’re living in this kind of liminal space.”
‘Diverse Voices’ is a project developed by Wellington UNESCO City of Film to uncover some of the region’s diverse storytelling talent.
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