The award-winning film from last year’s Venice festival worked its way with graceful verve to become one of the season’s most remarkable debuts. It’s Istanbul, not far in the future, and the city has been plunged into darkness, yet this has little to do with the sudden power surge. Four characters and four fascinating aspects of an unsettling metropolis are rendered in this punkishly brutal pamphlet about the cost of personal freedom and the dignity of the neglected.
The winning film of last year’s International Critics’ Week in Venice worked its way with graceful verve to become one of the season’s most remarkable debuts. It’s Istanbul, not far in the future, and the city has been plunged into darkness, yet this has little to do with the sudden power surge. Four characters, four fascinating aspects of an unsettling metropolis and of a neighbourhood undergoing a process of gentrification en route to a “new Turkey”. A mother whose son is in prison, a young female dancer, a feminist artist, and a guy whose shiftiness is written all over his face. Azra Deniz Okyay offers up a punkishly brutal pamphlet on the cost of personal freedom and the dignity of the neglected.
Karel Och
87 min / Color, DCP
Director Azra Deniz Okyay
/ Screenplay Azra Deniz Okyay
/ Dir. of Photography Barış Özbiçer
/ Music Ekin Fil
/ Editor Ayris Alptekin
/ Producer Dilek Aydın
/ Production Heimatlos Films
/ Coproduction MPM Film
/ Cast Nalan Kuruçim, Dilayda Güneş, Beril Kayar, Emrah Özdemir
/ Sales MPM Premium
Azra Deniz Okyay (1983, Istanbul). Selected filmography: Little Black Fishes (Küçük kara baliklar, 2013, short), Sulukule mon amour (2016, short doc.), Ghosts (Hayaletler, 2020).
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Azra Deniz Okyay
Film Director
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