Rumi summarizes his life as “The result of my life is no more than three words: I was raw, I became cooked, I was burnt.”. I have been writing scripts for years. I was always interested in Eastern literature. By the words of Rumi, when I was “burnt”, have learnt about Veysel’s story of reaching “divine love from carnal love”, I have excitedly realized that it was a universal philosophy of love that I could work on in my first movie.

Veysel was a child who started playing baglama[1] after he loses his sight at the age of eight. I believe that the secret behind the transformation of Blind Veysel into Ashik Veysel is his unrequited love. I think, what made Veysel a world famous Ashik[2] is his long and narrow road cooked him when he was raw and burned him by singing his first and very own ballad called “Long Narrow Road”. I have a strong belief that, the eye of heart of this little blind man is the most pure and idyll proposition of love from which universally everyone should take a lesson from.

During this unrequited love story revealing the path of love of Blind Veysel becoming “Ashik Veysel”, regarding the audience I pursue an ambitious goal of questioning what real love is and experiencing the philosophy behind Sufism in an artistic point of view.

Bilal BABAOGLU

[1] The baglama is a stringed musical instrument shared by various cultures in the Eastern Mediterranean, Near East, and Central Asia regions.

[2] Ashik is a mystic bard, balladeer, or troubadour who accompanied his song—be it a hikaye (Persian: dastan, a traditional epic or a romantic tale) or a shorter original composition—with a long necked lute (saz, baglama). Also means “lover” in Turkish language.