Turkey

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Turkish filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s cinema studies alienation through mainly minimalist means. Since Clouds of May (Mayis Sikintisi) and Distant (Uzak), which won the Grand Prix and a double prize for Best Actor at Cannes, the most conspicuous trait that makes him an auteur is his personal touch. Emotional distances filled in with long silences and uncertainties on faces in close-ups, supported by beautifully shot landscapes, are his trademarks. With a poetic, yet almost painfully honest approach, he passionately continues depicting the complexity of the human soul and its divine dilemmas. His talent is often comparable to great directors such as Bergman, Antonioni, Bresson, Tarkovsky and he clearly emphasizes the motto “less is more.”Read More »

Ummuye, Behiye, Ummu, Fatma K., Cennet, Saniye, Fatma F., Zeynep and Nesime are nine peasant women living in Arslankoy, a mountain village in southern Turkey. They spend their days working hard in the fields, on the construction site and at home. To lighten the burden of life, these women come together for a wholly different reason. They intend to write and perform a play based on their own life stories. They gather at the local high school, which they were shy of even stepping into until that day and they work with the principal, Mr. Huseyin. They reveal their life stories that they were even afraid to tell themselves and confront. For days on end, under the curious gazes of the village men, they work tirelessly, discuss and create with much fun a play, “The Outcry of Women!” This documentary is about the development process of this play and the change the women went through during this period.Read More »

Synopsis
When Hay was seven years old, he found a dead horse in an open field and watched his father and other adults struggle to get rid of it. Unsure of this memory, he is nonetheless influenced by this incident and, when he cuts himself during a sacrificial rite, everything comes flashing back.Read More »

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I am pretty sure Chagan Irmak was aware of the fact that the movie is completely different than what people was expecting. He is brave enough to discuss the issues like freedom of speech, military coups in his movies explicitly. But this time, he was indirect and he makes people to think. In most of the Turkish movies, it is a tradition to give the message in a direct way. But this makes Ulak special .. Irmak breaks those traditions. The photography, costumes are were great. Throughout the movie, I tried where/when the story takes place. What is their religion? I liked that disturbance in my mind. which make me to think and I enjoyed my mind trip!Read More »

A small-time crook digs himself deeper into trouble the harder he tries to get out in this comedy from Turkey. Altan (Cem Yilmaz) is a low-level criminal severely lacking in both luck and skill, and his wife (Ceyda Duvenci) has had just about enough of his life outside the law. In desperation, Altan strikes upon an idea for one big score — his brother (Mazhar Alanson) is the manager of a pharmaceutical warehouse, so Altan grabs his bother, nabs a large cache of drugs, and heads to the seashore where he can sell his ill-gotten wares. However, just as business starts to pick up for Altan, a gang of rival drug dealers decide they would also like a piece of the action. Her Sey Cok Guzel Olacak /Everything’s Gonna Be Great was a major box office success in Turkey, partly due to the presence of Mazhar Alanson as Altan’s brother, who is a major Turkish pop star.Read More »

Brief Synopsis
Based on an autobiographical novel, story of the four year exile (1922-26) from his Turkish homeland of early European ecologist Cevat Sakir (1890-1973).

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Based on the true story of Cevat Şakir, a Turkish writer who, just after Turkey’s defeat in World War I, fell foul of the authorities when he wrote about deserters from the army. At first sentenced to hang, he was later sent to a distant part of the country to serve a prison sentence and eventually allowed to live in a rented house.Read More »

They come at night and everybody steps out. They light torches and remember those who have walked these streets before them. In the coming hours, the city will be on lockdown: an eclipse appears and meteors start to fall…Read More »

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Among those who made interesting women’s films in the 1980s, and in the centre of the controversy about a feminist cinema, was Atıf Yılmaz. “A Divorced Woman” is one of those films about a woman who in the past had no other role but being a pretty ornament and sex object. She discovers her new sexuality with another woman. And adaptation of Necati Cumalı´s story by the same name (note: his play “bir sabah gülerek uyan”), about a woman who frees herself from male-dominated conventions.Read More »

Mr. Gay Syria follows two gay Syrian refugees who are trying to rebuild their lives. Husein is a barber in Istanbul, living a double life between his conservative family and his gay identity. Mahmoud is the founder of Syria’s LGBTI movement and is a refugee in Berlin. What brings them together is a dream: to participate in an international beauty contest as an escape from their trapped lives and an answer to their invisibility. Will the dream come true or will the refugee crisis and the harsh consequences of being gay in the Muslim world shatter it to pieces?Read More »