'Ertuğrul 1890' nominated for 10 Japanese Academy Awards

The Turkish-Japanese co-production "Ertuğrul 1890" has been nominated for the Japanese Academy Awards (or the Nippon Akademī-shō), regarded as Japan's Oscars, in 10 categories. The film depicts the story of the Ottoman ship known as the Ertuğrul Frigate, which set sail to Japan 125 years ago in order to improve Turkish-Japanese relations. The frigate sank during a typhoon in 1890 near Kushimoto, in the Wakayama Prefecture, and local people made great effort to save the lives of the Ottoman crew on the ship. Five-hundred-and-thirty-three sailors died and only 69 survived. The film also relates another memorable incident in Tehran where 215 Japanese passengers were besieged during the war between Iraq and Iran in 1985. The Japanese passengers were saved with a Turkish Airlines plane, which strengthened the relations between Turkey and Japan. "Ertuğrul 1890" is the first Turkish-Japan co-production.

The filming of "Ertuğrul 1890" began in December 2014 in Japan. The film was shot in Istanbul, Cappadocia and Antalya in Turkey, and Kushimoto and Kyoto in Japan.

The film was written by Eriko Komatsu and Professor İskender Pala was the historical consultant for the film which starred Tamer Levent, Melis Babadağ, Murat Serezli, Deniz Oral, Mehmet Özgür, Kenan Ece, Hakkı Haluk Cömert, Cem Cücenoğlu, Mert Aygün, Naoto Takenaka, Yuı Natsukawa, Toshiyuki Nagashima, Ayumi Takano, Takashi Sasano and Shioli Kutsuna. The film was directed by Mitsutoshi Tanaka with assistant directors Uğur Karaaslan and Oğuz Uydu.

Nominated in the Best Film category alongside five other films at the 39th Japanese Academy Awards, "Ertuğrul 1890" was also nominated for best script, best male actor, best director, best photography, best music, best sound record, best editing and best art director. The winners will be announced during the award ceremony to be held on March 4, 2016.