125 Years Memory (Ertuğrul 1890)

Ertuğrul 1890 is a 2015 Japanese-Turkish historical drama directed by Mitsutoshi Tanaka from a screenplay by Eriko Komatsu. Co-produced by Japan's Toei and Creators' Union together with Turkey's Böcek Yapım, it weaves two real events that cemented the friendship between the two nations into a single narrative. The first chapter tells of the Ottoman frigate Ertuğrul, which sank off Wakayama in 1890 after being caught in a typhoon on its way home from a goodwill visit; more than five hundred sailors perished, while poor villagers risked their lives to rescue sixty-nine survivors. The second chapter moves to 1985, when over three hundred Japanese nationals stranded in Tehran during the Iran-Iraq War were evacuated by a Turkish Airlines plane sent on Prime Minister Turgut Özal's orders. Released in Turkey on 25 December 2015, the film won Japan Academy Film Prizes in ten categories.