It was so nice to catch those locations. It took me quite a long time to make the final decisions. There's a really beautiful shot at the beginning with the house reflecting in the water, that comes back toward the end. I knew the movie would end with the water covering Berzan's village and it gave me the idea that it's also a story about transformation. The Turkish character goes through a great transformation.
Water is always the link in the story.
So since I had thought about the water for the ending, I thought the movie should start with the water too, when Mehmet is carrying Berzan's coffin at the start of the journey. That first shot is with a long lens and because of the lens, you see somebody carrying something, but you don't know in the reflection what it is. The idea is that we follow him, but we don't know what happened and who the dead person is. Then we go back to the beginning and introduce all the characters and we see their relationship and what they are doing in the big metropolis. And then we catch that opening moment again at the end of the town where the journey begins.