Interview with Kemal Burak Alper, Star of Dead Dogs Don’t Bite: “We All Know What Real Labour Looks Like”
Interview with Kemal Burak Alper, Star of Dead Dogs Don’t Bite: “We All Know What Real Labour Looks Like”
We sat down with Kemal Burak Alper—who portrays İsmet in Dead Dogs Don’t Bite, a film chronicling two childhood friends attempting to break into the illicit mafia syndicates built around European waste dumped in Adana—to discuss his approach to performance, the film’s festival journey, the Adana Golden Boll Film Festival, and its critical reception.
When you first encountered İsmet, what struck you most about his story?
First, the absence of a father, then his ailing mother, and the profound desolation that comes with navigating such an unforgiving life… For me, that is essentially the answer. İsmet also gave me the rare opportunity to translate what those very realities actually feel like to an audience. Stepping back to look at the broader picture, you could see him as an archetype of contemporary Turkish youth. Then again, across eras and geographies, young people are invariably molded, crushed, or hardened beneath the sheer weight of systemic structures. Flourishing in spite of that is an uphill battle…
Caught between an ailing mother with cancer, grinding poverty, and the bare-knuckle struggle to survive—how did you navigate the weight İsmet shoulders while constructing the character?
The dynamic between an actor and their character is fundamentally one of surrender. Occasionally, we play figures we fundamentally dislike, passing silent judgment from within. That inevitably forces the portrayal through a rigid, self-conscious filter. When that happens, I tell myself: if I’m going to do this, let it serve a higher purpose. With İsmet, however, that tension never arose. Every hardship in his life is, if you look around us, an ordinary, bitter reality. That brings a different kind of responsibility: refusing to falsify, eschewing histrionics, avoiding melodrama. To embellish would be to lie both to İsmet and to the people he represents. Without absolute sincerity, the fragile pact of surrender collapses. I tried to filter my performance entirely through that discipline.
İsmet gravitating deeper into Dogo’s orbit marks a critical inflection point. Yet, witnessing Dogo’s descent, İsmet still stands by him. Would you call that loyalty or sheer desperation?
I would say fatherlessness. Typically, a father teaches you these things when you are still a boy—the moment you find your feet and start running. He tells you: “Son, don’t go there. This is how things are; this is who those people are.” The same applied to Dogo. And I believe İsmet was acutely aware that Dogo was missing that compass too. That’s why he tried to protect him, but the momentum of events was far more rapid and brutal than either of them could anticipate or bear. The deceit, betrayal, and mercilessness of their environment had already seeped into their bond. That is precisely what İsmet fails to see until it is far too late. A bit of a spoiler for those who haven’t seen it yet, but hopefully forgivable—my apologies.
Across the film, we watch İsmet’s aspirations unravel one by one. What, in your view, is his greatest loss?
His innocence. Because he lacks worldly awareness, I suspect he will rebuild whatever remains of his life on the ruins of that loss. Elders, of course, know that every new day is an invitation to confront oneself, to strive toward grace and decency. But look at İsmet’s dreams—what were they, really? Could that course of action ever lead to the happiness he envisioned? I don’t think İsmet ever truly had the luxury to dwell on his dreams, nor did life afford those boys the space to harbour them. Even when burning garbage without a boss hovering overhead, they might grasp at something resembling a daydream, but it’s an illusion. Even in those moments, if you look closely, their condition never transcends servitude and subservience.
Waste in the film is not merely a setting or a livelihood; it becomes an overarching metaphor for the system at large. What did it feel like, physically and intuitively, to inhabit that environment as an actor?
We tried to merge with it as completely as possible. We wanted to experience the sheer mundanity of it all from their perspective, along with the hardship and the slow unraveling of their world. That said, getting stared down by a rat at the waste processing facility certainly kept me on edge. It felt as though we were shooting right in the middle of their metropolis—not that I minded; we’re civilized creatures too, after all. There was a narrow corridor I had to walk down, and this rat was posted right at the edge. I stepped forward to scare it off, perhaps a bit too aggressively, and it charged straight at me! Not out of panic, mind you, but in full offensive mode. Come to think of it, even the local stray cats were meek; they never went near that quarter. It felt like we’d run into the local metropolitan police force. Another time, Burakcan and I nearly rolled the pickup truck into a roadside ditch, but that was about it—Cihan calmly called out over the radio, and I swerved back onto the road just in time.
Waste, poverty, organized crime, ecocide, and violence… The film converges on an immense array of heavy themes. Was carrying that weight difficult for you as an actor?
It wasn’t hard on us, per se… but it might be for the audience. We all yearn for happiness, yet our era is steeped in accumulated distress—the pandemic, earthquakes, the grinding inertia of day-to-day existence, and virtually every social sphere we encounter. Our audiences are exhausted. Still, I believe recovery starts from these very quarters: first the family, then the apartment block, then the street, the neighbourhood, the country… In truth, if you simply cleaned the path you tread every morning when you wake up, that would suffice—and I don’t just mean with a broom. But sheer fatigue, coupled with our instinctual pursuit of happiness, turns even genuine human connection into a burden. People shy away from the civic obligations tied to the family, the building, the neighbourhood, or the homeland… yet these very spaces occupy the vast majority of our lives.
We learn over time to recognize and cherish what is inherently good for us, but life’s stance rarely shifts until our own attitude does. It’s easy to champion equality, decency, and justice in rhetoric, yet fail to truly know the very people we claim to defend. It all comes down to truly knowing one another; that is how human beings learn and construct themselves. To me, that is the essence of our nature as social animals. When grounded in mutual respect and empathy, that process is deeply rewarding. Yet everyone feels justified in retreating; it demands less energy, perhaps, but it leaves us alienated, unseeing, and incapable of learning—which ultimately alienates us from ourselves. Carrying that social reality weighs far more heavily on me than İsmet’s individual grief. In that sense, İsmet’s struggles, Dogo’s, and the broader narrative become deeply entwined with our own concerns as a crew. Speaking for the team, the set was an absolute pleasure. We didn’t burn out; on the contrary, this was our purpose. The water was cold, but we were all people who took genuine love in the work.
The nexus between masculinity and violence is pronounced throughout the film. How does İsmet construct his own masculinity within this brutal environment?
İsmet believes Dogo protects him, and in turn, he tries to protect Dogo in his own way. Through this mutual pact, he imagines they can withstand the brutal world around them—surviving, resisting, and fighting side by side. A man’s trial with his own power is an age-old cliché that will persist as long as men exist. Regrettably, much of the world’s current order is the fallout of that very trial. Lysistrata—the ancient Greek play dating back over two millennia—underlines this precisely through a women’s revolt. In our country, we see its devastating repercussions in gender-based violence. If the violence between men were ever to subside, women might finally find peace as well.
How was the shooting experience for you overall?
It was genuinely rewarding. I was surrounded by wonderful colleagues who became lifelong friends. I have an immensely understanding, patient family who held down the fort—I am boundlessly grateful to them. As for the crew, everyone was entirely locked in, striving to deliver their absolute best. Every time I looked up from my work, that dedication was what I saw.
How did director Nuri Cihan Özdoğan’s ability to articulate such an intense cinematic landscape in his debut feature impact you as an actor?
When I first read Cihan’s script, what immediately stood out were two distinct worlds that needed to be synthesized. As writer and director, he conceived both worlds as central characters in their own right: our intimate sphere on one side, and the ruthless world confronting it on the other. Everyone involved worked toward harmonizing those two registers seamlessly—from cinematography to direction, every department rallied around that mandate.
Cihan had already examined both dynamics in his short films, which were wonderful pieces in their own right. He puts in relentless effort. He cares deeply about society and draws his creative discipline from that engagement. We have extraordinary talents among us, both in front of and behind the camera—Burakcan, Cihan, Tunahan, Veli… Banu as well. But really, you should hear from them directly—from the younger generation. The urge to create something meaningful invariably runs into that cynical refrain: “Who cares?” For a young artist, that must be one of the heaviest burdens to carry. Not that it isn’t instructive, of course… but still: who cares?
To put it plainly, when I read the screenplay, I saw Cihan intertwining two genres: an existential, independent, gritty social realism, colliding with the sweeping, systemic storytelling of the great Scorsese cinema that shaped us all. At least, that was my reading. Cihan is a native son of Adana; he may well have absorbed that storytelling legacy from Yaşar Kemal and Orhan Kemal. The characters, after all, are rooted in that very soil. You could see him channeling everything he possessed into the craft with total commitment. It is deeply inspiring to witness. We all know what real labour looks like.
How did anchoring the narrative in Adana and the wider Çukurova plain inform your connection to the character?
Yılmaz Güney’s novel Boynu Bükük Öldüler (They Died with Their Heads Bowed) was what first taught me the reality of Adana. It’s something you struggle to grasp at times, and once you do, you struggle to articulate it. It’s the age-old saga of feudal landlords and disenfranchised agrarian labourers. When you’ve endured generations of indignity—unimaginable hardship—there comes a point where, forgive the bluntness, you simply refuse to take anyone’s grief anymore. In our film, İsmet is one of those sons, and Dogo is the other: in their devotion, in their rebellion, and ultimately in their fate. Everything Çukurova brought to our narrative gave soul to a universal human condition. There are countless other youths out there raised under these very conditions, or seduced by them.
The story could easily have been framed around narcotics, white-collar crime, local politicians, or tradesmen, but it centered on garbage. That was the director’s choice. People from Adana love their homeland, and Cihan is no exception. If we want to look at urgent social realities that directly implicate us: here is a stunning corner of our country drowning beneath waste imported from Europe, treated as an offshore dumping ground. Can you fathom that?
What did it feel like to see the film resonate so strongly in Adana and draw such enthusiastic crowds during festival screenings?
We felt thrilled and deeply proud. We came of age there; this year marks my seventeenth year in the city. Bringing the film home felt a lot like a schoolboy excitedly rushing to show his report card to his elders—a very natural kind of nervous anticipation.
The film was awarded the SİYAD Cüneyt Cebenoyan Best Film Award at the Adana Golden Boll Film Festival. Were you anticipating it, and what went through your mind when it was announced?
We are deeply grateful to the Turkish Film Critics Association (SİYAD) for deeming us worthy of this honour. Their institutional memory, erudition, and critical stance are invaluable in terms of broadening horizons and offering vital guidance to cinema. My sincere thanks to them.
You also received the Best Actor Award at the Istanbul Film Festival for your performance as İsmet. What was your initial thought upon receiving it?
Let’s say shared with Burakcan. Ekin Koç was on the jury, and he showed exceptional character: after the ceremony, he came up to Burakcan and me to share that the Turkish jurors had advocated for a joint award between the two of us, but the international jury members were bewildered by the idea, having never encountered such a split, and couldn’t be swayed. He could have simply thought, “Who cares?” and moved on, but he didn’t, and I respect him for that.
It’s a complex feeling… Recognition from master practitioners instills both drive and courage. Yet anyone labouring in this craft knows full well that whatever beauty emerges is owed collectively to one another. Praise is no more precious coming to me than to anyone else. These triumphs only hold meaning when shared, and sharing elevates them further. As for whatever falls short, well, that’s always blamed on the director—poor soul, left to shoulder the blame for everything! All my gratitude goes to Cihan’s pen, heart, and vision.
Rather than offering easy solace, the film leaves the viewer in a place of discomfort. Do you feel that is precisely cinema’s role at times?
Whatever is necessary in that moment, I think. Ultimately, the essence of the work lies in awakening an impulse toward action in the viewer. That is hardly a secret in our era; we witness it every day. Visual culture and media are routinely engineered to galvanize us into action, whether for commercial gain or political campaigns. Every artist applies their craftsmanship according to what they perceive is needed. The demands of the zeitgeist are what truly dictate the form, and naturally, that varies for each individual.
In the natural flow of life, we arrive at endings collectively. What we call “the present” is simultaneously an ending—a living, communal denominator shared with everyone around us. Sharing is our innate state. The virtual realm cannot replicate that experience, because there we don’t genuinely share a moment with anyone; it is merely an individualized performance of curated beauty, an aestheticization of solitude. Rather than pursuing that connection in the ebb and flow of daily life, we expend our labor on digital profiles, attempting to manufacture beauty through material proxies.
Cinema, like any branch of art, fundamentally aspires to enrich man’s daily existence for the better. That was Cihan’s intention, and that is how we were taught. In the end, it is the audience who will decide how things conclude. It has always been that way.
