A Turkish short where fame is mandatory screens in Manhattan on November 21
What if Andy Warhol’s fifteen minutes of fame never ended? That is the premise of The Guilty (Suçlu), an 18-minute short by Turkish writer and director Bulut Kırbaş, which NYC Films Infest will screen on Saturday, November 21, at the Producers Club in Manhattan, during the festival’s afternoon screenings between 1 and 6 p.m. The film is a Finalist for Best Fiction Short Film, and Kırbaş is traveling to New York for the screening and the awards ceremony that evening.
A world where everyone must be seen
In the world Kırbaş imagines, celebrity is no longer something people chase: it is a duty imposed from birth. Hasan, the protagonist, refuses it. He wants an ordinary life, and that is enough for those around him, starting with his own family, who are struggling to make ends meet, to treat him as an offender.
“I asked myself what would happen if those fifteen minutes never ended.”
Absurd and familiar
Kırbaş drew on his own habits and on what he saw around him: people filming themselves cooking, walking down the street, riding the subway or the ferry. He tells the story with the dark humor he finds in everyday life, where pain and comedy can share the same scene.
“I wanted that preoccupation to feel absurd and familiar at the same time.”
The Guilty (Suçlu) is his final short film. He is now developing his first feature, Proof of Love, an absurd dark comedy about the immigrant experience in the United States, which he hopes to shoot in the country in late 2027 or around mid-2028.
