TULIP The Light Of The East
Tesselaar Tulip Festivals now includes
Turkish Weekends – Celebration The Origin Of The Tulip
TULIP, THE LIGHT OF THE EAST – Best Tulip Documentary Film
The Tulip’s Grand Role in History
direction………..Hikmet Yenigun, Hansje Ran and Mark Verkerk
production……..EMS, SWYNK. Kultur A.S. Istanbul, RNTV
2003, 52 minutes
This is the story of an exotic blossom that has shaped human destinies and influenced world history for many years. Greed, desire and anguish have all played a part in the development of the tulip, from its origin as a wild flower on the steppes of Asia to its current status as a world phenomenon.
The dramatic saga of the tulip is brought to life through a combination of contemporary film material along with interviews with several tulip experts, such as Mike Dash, author of the book “Tulipomania”and Deborah Moggach, author of “Tulip Fever”. These elements are combined with carefully re-enacted historical scenes whose stylized nature provides a stimulating contrast to the contemporary documentary material allowing the historical portions to remain strongly narrative driven.
The film reveals the tulip’s extraordinary diversity, its ability to come up with a new guise, its power to make and lose fortunes and to demand – and get – attention. And all of this just to achieve one goal: to spread itself across the world.
