The Neighborhood 2022

A well-located but poor district in Istanbul, surrounded by gardens, flowers, and trees, is to be leveled by a construction company in order to be able to build higher-quality real estate there. There is resistance to these plans, especially among young people in the neighborhood.

Fish 2014

A fisherman, his wife and young daughter who is unable to speak lives in a village on the shores of a lake. Their story starts with a myth of a fish, trying to find a cure for their daughter.

Halam Geldi 2014

The Long Way Home 2013

Inhospitable at the best of times, the snow-covered mountainscapes of Eastern Anatolia constituted a fatal frontier for many war exiles after the battle of Sarikamish in 1915, and provides a canvas laced with beauty and threat for this bone-chilling survival yarn, the superb debut feature of Alphan Eşeli. Starting out with three characters – a refugee mother and daughter and their grizzled guide – the film traces their daunting trek across this barren terrain to safety, with the Russians encroaching and other stragglers, including a pair of wounded, frostbitten Ottoman soldiers, all orbiting the same burnt-out village they find in their path. Puncturing its aura of ghostly impasse with some shocking narrative reversals, and constantly prickling with the mutual dread of strangers in gruelling extremes, the movie stakes out hugely credible ground next to established Eastern Front war classics (In the Fog, Come and See) while remaining thoroughly its own beast. (Source: LFF programme)

The Butterfly's Dream 2013

In a small Turkish town, two young tuberculous poets try to survive while publishing their poems. As they both fall in love, their life would never be the same.