Cannes Do Attitude

A year ago, Belcim Bilgin was a university student living in Ankara, Turkey. Her only acting experience was performing in nonprofessional student productions.

Cast in a pivotal role in Hiner Saleem's "Kilometre Zero," the exotic 22-year-old beauty was instantly transformed. She made the leap from a complete unknown to the center of international movie consciousness when the film became the first Kurdish film ever accepted into official competition at the Festival de Cannes.

At the movie's red-carpet premiere at the Grand Theatre Lumiere last month, Bilgin wore a €30,000 designer dress. Given the historical plight of Iraqi Kurds trying to live free of ethnic repression, Bilgin's personal narrative was suddenly infused with a pungent, contemporary relevance. "Most of my friends are not very political, and they have different emotions about (the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq). But we all agree that it was necessary to remove Saddam from power," she says in accented English.

In "Kilometre Zero," the second feature of Kurdish filmmaker Saleem ("Vodka Lemon"), Bilgin plays Selma, a young wife whose husband has been illegally drafted into Saddam Hussein's Iraqi army in 1988. The story, which details the husband's efforts to return to his village, unfolds at the end of Iraq's eight-year conflict with Iran. Saleem, who resides in Paris, says he based the story on the experiences of his brother.

The expressive Bilgin grew up in a close, protective Kurdish family in Ankara. "I went to the university there, and I had a good life," she says. "I didn't have any real training. I did some amateur theater productions. For one of the plays I did, I got a special prize," she says.

Through a friend, Bilgin learned about an open casting call for Saleem's film. "I went in with the attitude that he was going to pick me," she shrugs. She worked for two months of the film's grueling five-month desert shoot. The experience was jolting, far removed from her conservative, orderly life. The movie's visibility at Cannes trained the focus on the demands for freedom and political and cultural autonomy for the Kurds, she says. "Cannes was about showing off a (part) of (my) society, of (my) family, of what's important. For me, I have to stay focused. It's about moderation. Right now, everything's about the opportunity of moving on to better things," she says.

Bilgin is aggressively capitalizing on the movie's high-profile Cannes premiere and its political topicality. The full process began about six months ago when Bilgin moved to Paris. "I'm learning French," she says, pausing before unleashing a mischievous smile. It's only temporary, she insists. "I'm going to be in America within a year."