WORLD CINEMA AND LITERATURE

A film about the life of world famous weightlifting champion Naim Süleymanoğlu

Pocket Hercules:Naim Süleymanoğlu tells the life story of the legendary weightlifter Naim Süleymanoğlu, whose name is written in gold letters in the world sports history. He was 15 years old when he signed his first World Record, and he puts 7 World Records in his sports career, 3 Olympic Gold Medals he won in three different Olympics, 6 European Championships and 7 World Championships and many more.

The film, which reveals the life of Naim Süleymanoğlu, was shot in Sofia, Momchilgrad and Kırcali regions of Bulgaria. Some of them were directed Azerbaijan and Turkey.

Naim Süleymanoğlu was Born in 1967 in Mestanlı, Bulgaria, a weightlifting athlete of Turkish origin. European, World and Olympic Champion. He holds 47 world records, some of which will never be able to break again. The national pride of the whole country, and most of all the Balkan Turks, at the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 90s.

The screenplay of the film was written from the book "My Brother Pocket Hercules", in which Naim Süleymanoğlu's brother Muharrem Süleymanoğlu wrote his memoirs, and was based on the 11-year period from the days of 1977 Bulgaria to the 1988 Seoul Olympics.Until the second part of the film, we watch the ambition of a young athlete to win and to raise his own success for longing for family and an emotional mother-son relationship. When the Bulgarian government's attempts to change names and erase cultures against Turkish citizens come into play, the film takes on a political identity from the story of an individual athlete. Of course, what happened to the Turks in Bulgaria at that time cannot be overlooked, as well as the person whose story is told and his family.Süleymanoğlu escaped to the Turkish Embassy in Melbourne, Australia in 1986 during the World Weightlifting Championship.

One of the brightest years of the life of one of the most successful athletes in this world, Pocket Hercules, the weight of the spiritual burden placed on his shoulders, and the voice of the Bulgarian Turks, who were crushed at that time by the Communist Party of Todor Zhivkov. The film is in theaters in 2019.

Naim Suleymanoglu died on November 18, 2017 at the age of 50.

The forcible renaming of Muslims in Bulgaria marked one of the darkest acts of the communist regime. There were victimes and severe resistance to those who resisted. About 360,000 Bulgarian Muslim citizens emigrated to Turkey. In history, this moment remains as the "Great Excursion", which is accompanied by great family dramas of separated families, separation from home and loss of property. As a result of forced relocation, many areas of the country are depopulated field .Just a few months later Zhivkov was forced by Moscow to resign.