Fuad Kavur

Fuad Kavur (born 1950 in Istanbul, Turkey) is a British opera and film director and producer.

Fuad came to London in 1963 when his uncle, Kemal N. Kavur, was the Turkish ambassador. Fuad comes from a family of diplomats: one paternal uncle, Kemal N. Kavur, served as ambassador to Finland, Bulgaria, the Soviet Union, Japan, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland; another, Sadi Kavur, was ambassador to Yugoslavia, Sweden and Portugal.

Fuad went to Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle in London, and later studied International Relations at University College London. However, straight after university, Kavur went into arts. In 1973, he directed the British premiere of Gottfried von Einem's opera Der Prozeß, based on Franz Kafka's novel, The Trial, at Bloomsbury Theatre. Fuad then worked at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, as assistant to John Copley. From 1977, Fuad collaborated exclusively with Sir Peter Ustinov on opera productions at the Paris Opera, Hamburg State Opera, La Scala (Milan), the Mozarteum Salzburg and the Deutsche Oper Berlin. In 1978, Fuad directed the revival of Wagner's Ring Cycle at Washington's Seattle Opera in a production originally created by George London (1975)

In 1984 Fuad produced the feature film Memed, My Hawk (also known as The Lion and the Hawk), based on the novel Memed, My Hawk by Yashar Kemal. It was directed by Sir Peter Ustinov and starred Ustinov, Herbert Lom, Simon Dutton, Siobhan McKenna, Michael Elphick and Denis Quilley. Memed My Hawk had a royal premiere in London in the aid of UNICEF. However, both the filming and screening of Memed My Hawk was (and still is) banned in Turkey by the government as "communist propaganda".[1] Fuad was a company director of Peter Ustinov Productions Ltd. from 1982 to 1992.[2] In 2001, he was the executive producer of Atatürk, a television documentary on Kemal Ataturk, directed by Tolga Ornek and narrated by Sir Donald Sinden.

In January 2010 at SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies), London University, in the presence of HE the Turkish Ambassador, Yigit Alpogan, Fuad Kavur gave a talk on Ataturk, with Dr Andrew Mango, the eminent Ataturk scholar and biographer. Kavur's talk focused on the use Ataturk made of Jewish scientists, academics and artists, on the run from Hitler's Germany, by offering them a home in the newly formed Turkish Republic, to the benefit of the Turkish nation

As of 2012, Fuad has been preparing a feature film, also based on the life of Atatürk, scheduled to shoot in Hungary, in association with Origo Studios in Jjly 2014. The screenplay is written by Fuad Kavur who will also direct. The film is produced by Anthony Waye, Executive Producer of the last nine BOND movies, and Greg Szetlik, owner of ORIGO STUDIOS in Hungary. The cinematographer will be the Academy Award-winning Vilmos Zsigmond (Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Deer Hunter).

In July 2013, Kavur assembled a group of artists & writers, 30 in all, to sign an open letter addressed to the Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, criticising his handling of the Gezi Park Protests in June, which left 5 people dead, 11 blinded and 8,000 injured. The signatories included Susan Sarandon, Sean Penn, David Lynch, Sir Ben Kingsley, James Fox, Sir Tom Stoppard, Christopher Hampton, Lord Fellowes, Frederic Raphael, Edna O'Brien, Rachel Johnson, Christopher Shinn, Branko Lustig, Vilmos Zsigmond and Ataturk's biographer Andrew Mango. The letter was published as a full page advertisement in the London broadsheet, The Times, on 24 July 2013 and caused a considerable stir in Turkey, culminating in the Prime Minister Erdogan threatening to sue The Times & the signatories So far, (August 2013), it is not clear if Mr Erdogan will carry out his threat or not.


References


  1. ↑ http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/Default.aspx?pageID=238&nid=51729
  2. ↑ http://books.google.com/books?id=Yyqc0Qa6b60C&lpg=PA256&ots=K80etTt3Fa&dq=Peter%20Ustinov%20Productions%20fuad%20kavur&pg=PA256#v=onepage&q=Peter%20Ustinov%20Productions%20fuad%20kavur&f=falsee