Halit Refiğ

Halit Refik Refiğ, born in Izmir on March 5, 1934, was the child of a family that migrated from Thessaloniki to Istanbul following the Balkan War in 1913. The name, which came from his grandfather Refik, was reflected in the family surname by adding the letter 'ğ' instead of the letter 'k' with the Surname Law. Pre-Republican politicians used to gather at the office in Taksim where his great-uncle was a dentist; This uncle's daughter, Celile Hanım, was the mother of the well-known storyteller Tomris Uyar.

After completing his primary and secondary education at Şişli Terakki High School, Halit started studying engineering at Robert College.

During his university years, he discovered the Sound Studio founded by Necip Erses in the Tünel district of Beyoğlu and started to learn the technical infrastructure of cinema with a free work offer. His trip to England in the summer of 1953 showed him that he had to start from scratch in this field; He gave up his education dreams and decided to return to Türkiye and complete his military service.

He was enrolled in the Reserve Officer Artillery School in Eskişehir Polatlı and was sent to Korea as a volunteer; He shot 8mm amateur films there and later donated these recordings to the Turkish Film Archive. He started his journalism career with his first cinema article published in Akis magazine on February 4, 1956, and in the following years he worked as a regular columnist in publications such as Akis, Sinema, Yeni Sabah and Akşam.

His first big job in the world of cinema was as an assistant in Atıf Yılmaz's movie "My Right to Live"; After this experience, he directed the feature film "Forbidden Love" in 1960. He won awards at international festivals (Moscow, New Delhi, Sorrento) with works such as "Stranger in the City" in 1963, "Birds of Absence", "Four Women in the Harem" and "I Loved a Turk" in 1964, and in the same year, he won the Best Director award at the Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival with "Birds of Absence".

When Turkish cinema entered a difficult period in the 1970s, he started a new era by turning to television films.

Halit Refiğ was born on March 5, 1934 in Izmir, Türkiye. He died on October 11, 2009.

Productions in which he took part

• The Golden Boll (1969) — Self - Winner
• Death Is Following Us (1960)
• Engine: Copy Culture and Popular Turkish Cinema (2019)

Production and imprint information was taken from TMDB.