He had assumed the task of organizing the annual handover of military command ceremony to be held Aug. 30 at the Navy Command in Gölcük (a city in the northwestern province of Kocaeli). But when the 45 seconds of terrible trembling that began at 3:02 a.m. were finally over, Dündar was stuck underneath the ruins of a five-storey building. He was in a state of shock when rescue teams managed to reach him, 27 hours after the huge earthquake, which killed around 20,000 and left thousands more homeless.

Dündar was presumed dead and taken to the Bandırma State Hospital morgue. But when a local youth realized that the body inside the bag was moving, Dündar was rushed to the hospital. Dündar recounts his experience of returning to life from the end of everything in his novel "Herşeyin Bittiği Yerden" (From Where Everything Ended). The filming of a movie based on the book got under way last weekend, on the ninth anniversary of the disastrous earthquake, centered in İzmit. The film, a Turkish-Greek co-production, is being directed by Ezel Akay. The movie stars Okan Bayülgen in its title role and pop singer Işın Karaca in one of the supporting roles, and tells Dündar's tale. It is planned for a March 2009 release.

A movie set was created in İzmit for the filming of the Turkish Red Crescent-sponsored movie. The setting of the quake was reconstructed for the movie. Some heavily damaged buildings that are still standing in İzmit will actually be demolished during the shooting process, which is expected to run for three months.

‘We sobbed in every story’

At $30 million, the movie is the largest-budgeted Turkish film ever, director Akay says. "We will consider ourselves lucky for every single life we impact. We did a lot of reading and listened to a lot of stories ahead of the shooting process. In every story we had to take breaks to break down and cry before continuing on with our work. We asked ourselves, "How will we be able to handle it?" But as we continued, we started to manage to deal with our fears and adopt a more analytical approach; we realized that we have a story that can be narrated and create a great impact. We expect that the movie will have a huge impact overseas as well. The film's final scene is set in the present. At the end of the movie, the date is Aug. 17, 2008."

Bayülgen says he was touched by the screenplay. "This story is so interesting. I had said that a book should have been released first and then a movie should have been shot based on this book. If you remember, back then, many interesting things were happening to us; almost everybody felt the pain associated with the devastation of the quake. So many stories were collected over the years that have passed by; these stories were lost and forgotten. People should tell these stories again and again so that people can remember what happened."

Dündar, who is also the film's producer, noted that he perceived the events and the movie differently from others. "I remained under the ground for 27 hours. After being rescued, Bayülgen told me they would develop this story into a movie. Our first attempt failed; a few people wanted to work on the screenplay but we failed to express ourselves. Then he [Bayülgen] asked me to write a novel, thinking that if we could not get a script written, we'll build our film on the novel. But still, there was no screenwriter. We needed a director like Ezel Akay to find a suitable screenwriter. Now we are able to make this movie."

"From Where Everything Ended" is likely to open the door for a number of untold stories from the Aug. 17, 1999 Marmara earthquake.

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