Turkey
The sad, lyrical story of four friends getting together for the first time in years, in a summer town, a andquot;paradise of retired people.andquot;
September 1980. Mustafa ‘Mehmet Ali Alabora’ and his wife, who’re both laborers are married for 5 years. The couple has nothing to do with politics and spend their days happily with their 3 year old daughter and their TV, despite the clamor of guns clashing outside every night. One Friday morning, they wake up and hear the voice of Hasan Mutlucan on radio and observe soldiers marching through the streets, the very confirmation of the military coup that has taken place. Arrests begin instantly in workplace and neighborhood. Yet Mustafa, far from being disturbed, assumes that all apprehensions must have rightful reasons. Until the night he’s taken into custody, charged with the crimes of a militant code named “Sehmuz”.
During the period of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, a woman who reluctantly went to a gloomy Istanbul mansion as a bride, and the mysterious owner of the mansion, will go on a journey to the dark secrets of the past together.
The story follows a group of birds on a journey where they try to find a better life for themselves and the ones they love.
A stand up and musical show by Ata Demirer.
It contains a copy of Cem Yılmaz’s show CMYLMZ, staged between 2001-2007, recorded in Istanbul in March 2007.
Salim, Veysel and Şenol are three brothers living in a rural house. Salim and Veysel work as shepherds, while Şenol, forced to leave school by Salim, cares for their bedridden mother and handles household chores. Salim’s costly dream of marriage binds the brothers, leading to a final confrontation.
Commander Logar fools Arif and sends him 1.000.000 years back in the time. He must civilize people from past to reach today.
At the beginning of the 1960s, İlhan and Güngör Mimaroğlu moved from İstanbul to New York to start a new life. With a keen interest in avant-garde music, İlhan Mimaroğlu went on to become a leading composer of the nascent field of electronic music with his work at Columbia University, while Güngör Mimaroğlu would show an exemplary political stance at the forefront of the peace protests that took the 1960s by storm. “Mimaroğlu” is the story of a unique pair of spirits that have complemented each other in many ways.
Djam, a young Greek woman, is sent to Istanbul by her uncle Kakourgos, a former sailor with a passion for Rebetiko, to find a rare part that will repair their boat. In Istanbul, she encounters Avril, a nineteen-year-old French girl, alone and without any money, who came to Turkey as a voluntary worker with refugees. Djam, generous, cheeky, unpredictable, and free-spirited, takes Avril under her wing on the way to Mytilene. A journey filled with encounters, music, sharing, and hope.
Meeting Jim is a feature length documentary about a journey back to the lifetime of Jim Haynes, an extraordinary 83-year-old man who grabbed with heart and soul the spirit of the 60s and continued to carry it throughout his life.
Aziz and Lemi must recover a diamond gifted by the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire to the U.S. President which has been stolen by bandits in the American wild west.
When Ali and Yasemin, people from very different backgrounds and worlds fall in love, they fight to stay together with lessons through family, friends, teachers, and life.
Necmi, Çetin and Muzo’s biggest dream is to shoot a movie. For this they need money. Fortune smiles on their faces and they meet Kerim from Kadırga. Kerim sponsors the film they are going to make. The only requirement is to play the leading role in the movie. Of course, there is a small problem. Kadırgalı Kerim is a mafia.
Hakan and Nihal have been married for many years. Shortly after they find out that Nihal is unable to have children, she disappears. While searching for her, Hakan makes some painful discoveries. He must face his inner demons to discover what happened to his wife.
Fatih and Kumru, a lawyer from different cities, team up for a case involving a cheating spouse. They spend 8 hours racing around Izmir gathering evidence, unexpectedly altering their plans and lives.
Ecumenopolis: City Without Limits” tells the story of Istanbul and other Mega-Cities on a neo-liberal course to destruction. It follows the story of a migrant family from the demolition of their neighborhood to their on-going struggle for housing rights. The film takes a look at the city on a macro level and through the eyes of experts, going from the tops of mushrooming skyscrapers to the depths of the railway tunnel under the Bosphorous strait; from the historic neighborhoods in the south to the forests in the north; from isolated islands of poverty to the villas of the rich. It’s an Istanbul going from 15 million to 30 million. It’s an Istanbul going from 2 million cars to 8 million. It’s the Istanbul of the future that will soon engulf the entire region. It’s an Istanbul nobody has ever seen before.
This haunted reverie drops us inside an Istanbul retirement home, where the battle-scarred residents revel in the camera’s attention. A creaky-voiced woman shares her personal account of the Armenian genocide, a sweetly deluded pianist performs a composition before confessing his love and a blind photographer fiddles with his flash as he points his own camera back at us. All the while, however, the ominous transformation of the land is taking place at the hands of construction machinery.
In Keskincik, a village situated near the Syrian border of Turkey, a young man, Mahmut wishes to divorce his newly-wed wife. Guilt-ridden, he doesn’t know how to end the marriage. Recently, Mahmut’s sister Zeynep has ended her engagement as well. Resolute to quit the village, Zeynep enrols in an open high school and finds a job in a factory. Against her father’s wishes, Zeynep hopes to leave the village and study at a university. Mahmut and Zeynep become the centre of a genuine conflict in their family and community. As resentments and dilemmas come to light, the film aims to magnify this upcoming generation as they try to escape child marriages and create a new way of life for themselves.
Nihat, an introverted employee in a hospital cafeteria, is confused by Ayşe, a mysterious woman who just started working there as a dishwasher. Her obvious seductive approaches embarrass Nihat and make him nervous at the same time. Despite the rumors about her husband having been sentenced to many years in jail, Nihat reluctantly accepts Ayşe’s invitation to dinner at her house. This is the beginning of a strange and dangerous liaison. When Nihat discovers a picture of the woman’s husband and realizes that he looks astoundingly like him, the relation becomes even more toxic.
José Manuel and the other members of the ufology association Ovni-Levante meet weekly to exchange information about extraterrestrial messages and abductions. Julio, their leader, dies unexpectedly, leaving José Manuel as the only person who knows about the cosmic secret that could alter the human future.
In 2015, Ossamah Al Mohsen and her son were the victims of a trip on the Hungarian border by a television reporter in her desperate flight from a Syria at war. The cameras captured this moment by scandalizing public opinion. This kick allowed Ossamah, famous soccer coach in his country, to arrive in Madrid and resume his profession. But the rest of his family did not have the same luck. The story of Ossamah allows us to reflect on the survival of thousands of Syrian families trapped in Turkey but also that of Moatassam, Youssef and Muhannad, three promising Syrian footballers who were robbed of the best years of their lives by war.
While both living under demanding conditions of city life, Sevda and Zuhal’s paths intersect when Sevda’s husband Cezmi starts having an affair with Zuhal. This betrayal is life threatening for Sevda, who considers her marriage and the perfect order of daily life she created as a huge success.
New Yorker Kathryn has the deadly disease ALS and is completely paralyzed. She can only communicate by pointing out letters with her eyes on a special keyboard and she needs 24-hour care. It’s a horrific situation that Kathryn puts into words incisively and pragmatically. The only reason she hasn’t asked to be taken off life support yet, she says, is that she isn’t ready to say goodbye to her children. She wants at least to experience her daughter Minou’s wedding day.
A middle class young man rebels against his father’s brutish authority and seeks a rough romance with a woman of ethnic minority. Yuce’s moral tale draws from the example of today’s Turkish youth and the timeless shadow of fathers over sons.
Handan and Korhan a middle-aged couple who live their lives in one of istanbul’s best neighborhoods. Handan constantly invents things for herself in order to fill her life. Handan, imitates her friend Sermin and starts writing! But this desire, which is innocent in the first place, will become jealous over time and diverge in different ways.
Ilyas Bazna works as a butler in the British Embassy in Turkey during WW2. After Bazna starts to work as a German spy he is going to experience a series of unexpected events.
Hasret has been seeing the same nightmare for some time, but she keeps living unaware that what she sees is actually remembering. A 30-year-old woman who works in a News Channel, living alone in the flat left by her musician parents who died in a car crash twenty years ago. Is it? The question creeps into her mind, and then (or maybe even before) her life through recurring nightmares: Is it possible that her parents did not die in a car crash?
Seniha lives with her brother Halit and his wife Mükerrem. When Nüzhet, the handsome son of the richest family in town, sets his eyes on the married Mükerrem, she is at first disgusted with Nüzhet’s overt sexual innuendo. However, it isn’t long before Mükerrem yields to her lust and thus they embark on an affair. When Seniha finally reveals her sister-in-law’s un-virtuousness to her brother, Seniha has no idea what the consequences will be and how cruelly her destiny will change.
In 1950, amidst the ravages of the Korean War, Sergeant Süleyman stumbles upon a a half-frozen little girl, with no parents and no help in sight and he risks his own life to save her, smuggling her into his army base and out of harm’s way.
Housewife Dilek suddenly starts to feel the presence of something abnormal in her house. Her husband Omer refuses to agree, and the situation worsens. The couple discover that an ancient paranormal creature called Jinn has cursed on Dilek. They seek a cure but instead they learn of Dilek’s demons.
An idealist district governor, Selahattin Bey, adopts Yusuf, orphaned after his family was killed by thugs. Yusuf falls in love with Muazzez, the daughter of Selahattin. But when Hilmi Bey’s son Şakir also wants to marry Muazzez, a conflict escalates.
“The Pomegranate” tells the story of a woman; seeking her own justice. “The Pomegranate” questions the justice of four people with different beliefs in a house, in half a day and in their own realms of faith. Asuman is a fortune-teller with uncanny psychic powers who lives in the suburbs of Istanbul but tells fortunes of the rich at their own luxurious places.
