EKSIK (A Feature Documentary About Disabled Animals)

With this project I want to break that prejudice about disabled animals with a decent way of storytelling. As you know for sure people usually ignore disabled animals when they decide to have a pet. They even think that those animals' only action would be just sitting in one place and waiting for food, they don’t think they are capable of doing anything. But that’s so not true.

Blind cats and other disabled animals do have their own beautiful stories which can teach us lots of things. I know that and I think the world needs to know that too.

About me

My name is Mustafa Çiftci and I'm a 26 years old film student from Istanbul. I have at least four years of experience as a cinematographer..

Cinematography is what I am best at but I'm also writing scripts and making documentaries too. And actually this was supposed to be my second documentary. I had another feature project that I have been working on it for three years but because of the Covid-19 its impossible to finish it right now. So I focused on more finishable projects.

I also learned basics of drawing and 3D modelling during quarantine to make my own animations. But since I'm just a beginner I have a long way to acquire that goal. But maybe I can start to make one of my animations after I finish this documentary.

instagram.com/mustafa_ciftci2

About this project

At first it all started for a university project. It was supposed to be a short documentary but during production stage I felt that this project has a way bigger potential than that. And I knew there were so many people out there with zero knowledge about disabled animals, like me in five years ago. But I learned so many things from blind cats and I want other people to experience the similar things too. And I thought a decent feature documentary is one of the best ways to do that.

In March I found several people who has experinces with blind animals. I was planning to make interviews with all of them and I was willing to finish the production stage in May and post-production in July 2020, but after I did the first interview Covid-19 came to our country and suddenly we found ourselves in quarantine.

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In June, lockdown measurements got loosen by our goverment and a normalization process has been started. I did the second interview after that. So a chance of finishing this project has occurred.

For now I only got 3 interviews which are all about blind cats. But I'm planning to shoot other disabled animals stories too. I can finish this documentary with the necessary health measures but I lost all of my savings during quaratine. And this is the reason why I opened this campaign right now.

My experience with disabled animals

Five years ago, on a warm summer night I saw a beautiful kitten on the street. After a very short time I realised there was something wrong with her. Her eyes were fully covered with an infection. It would be a really big disservice to her to let her stay there so I decided to take her to my dorm room. My plan was to take her to a vet next morning and when she fully healed over I was going to be looking for someone to adopt her.

Next morning we went to the vet and after two hours of waiting he gave me the bad news. Unfortunately her both eyes were gone because of that infection. I was both upset and shocked at the same time. I never thought about that possibility before and I realised that I never thought about the existence of blind cats either. I decided to adopt her and took her to my dorm room again. I never thought about giving her to someone else or surrendering her to a shelter after I learned her situation.

I named her "Gece" (Means "Night" in Turkish).

At first it was really hard for both of us. She was a scared little blind kitty and I had no idea about cats. But after a very short period of time we both learned so many things from each other. I taught her things like how to find her litter box and how to get down from my bed with a book ladder I made. She learned everything so fast. And after one week she showed me that all she needed was a couple of days to memorize her new home.

My friends who saw her for the first time never believed in her blindness. “Are you really sure there are no eyes in there?” I heard that kind of questions all the time because she wasn’t acting like a blind animal. All she needed was a safe place to feel like herself.

We experienced so many good and bad things together. Unfortunately she passed away 4 months after finding her. Ironically she died because of a vet who saved her life once. But thats another story. She is resting in peace beneath her favourite spot in the garden right now.

In 2019 I moved to my new flat in Istanbul and after that I decided to adopt another cat again and I stumbled upon an Instagram page for adopting blind cats. I saw my "Bihter" there. She was 2 months old. She passed through similar things with Gece and she was waiting in a small cage for a very long time. So I adopted her.

*2 months old female, had an operation with her eyes, she cannot see and she needs a home.

She is now 14 months old and she is the most playful creature I have ever seen.