Credits
	Producer & Director	Nurdan Arca
	Director of Photography	Mehmet Erkmen
	Editor	Melih. F. Tatlıcan
	Original Music	Orhan Şallıel
	Production Date	2010
	Duration	37’
	Format	HDV

Tracing The Footprints Of Evliya Çelebi [Evliya Çelebi'nin İzinde]

They stayed for the night in tents in the mountains, traveled under rain and snow, lost the way in forests, were treated now and expelled then … yet they never gave up tracing the footprints of Evliya Çelebi on horse through the mountain paths where he threaded four hundred years ago and, more importantly, never gave up the effort of understanding him. They were historians, botanists, men and women of letters, and of course they were skilled horse riders. The documentary views the relationship of our riders with the legacy of Evliya Çelebi and with the villagers they met along the road and with their horse, and their traveling through the rivers, mountains and forests.

Most importantly, they follow the traces of Evliya Çelebi through his Seyahatname [Book of Travels]. They look to the 17th century in the background. Evliya Çelebi put himself on the roads with the intention of visiting the holy places of Islam four hundred years ago, urged by a mysterious impulse, which is a slip of tongue in his prayers when he wished “seyahat” [meaning "travel" in Turkish] mistakenly instead of “şefaat” [meaning "Intercession of Prophet Mohamed" in Turkish] as one saying goes or which is a result of his deliberations over “how to get rid of the agonies inflicted upon him by his father and mother and by his masters and brothers” as another saying goes. Then he dedicated his life to traveling and to know the people, the cities and the places, leaving behind Seyahatname, a book of travel written craftily, full of stories of the people and the phenomenal events. He journeyed on horse through the Ottoman geography in the 17th century, even by taking the risk of encountering with brigands now and then. Centuries later, a group of people having the soul of Evliya Çelebi rediscovered the extraordinary book of travel of him which is already in the bookshelf of most of us. Four hundred years after in the present day, the six friends, six lovers of history, six riders, decided to put themselves on the roads in pursuit of Evliya Çelebi, perhaps to get rid of the agonies of the modern times, who knows. Caroline Finkel, Dona Landy, Gerald McLean, Susan Whirt, Teresa Tardif and Ercihan Dilari, who came from four corners of the world, started from Istanbul in a rainy day. They said hello from Evliya Çelebi to whomever they met at the places they called and made guests from God at homes and lives in villages.