Autumn

Sonbahar

 

International Showcase

 

June 25, 9:30 pm, The Landmark

June 27, 7:00 pm, The Landmark

 

(Turkey, 2008, 106 mins)

In Turkish with English subtitles

35mm

Directed By: Özcan Alper

Producer: F. Serkan Acar
Screenwriter: Özcan Alper
Cinematographer: Feza Çaldiran
Editor: Thomas Balkenhol
Cast: Yusuf Onur Saylak, Gülefer Raife Yenigül, Eka Megi Kobol
Music: Yur Rydahencko, Ay Eunur Kol Var, Sumru Airyürüyen

After enduring ten years in a Turkish prison, former university student Yusuf has returned to his childhood home in a remote mountainous village. There, he finds his father dead and his sister gone and married, with only his frail mother left to mend his broken body and spirit.

Unmoored by his lengthy absence, Yusuf attempts to assimilate back into society, aided by his cynical old friend Mikail as well as Eka, a young prostitute and single mother from Georgia, who identifies Yusuf as a fellow lost soul. Yusuf, however, is unable to build a future without understanding the present or reconciling the past. Trapped in time, he struggles to find purpose in a life that seems to have passed him by.

Filmmaker Özcan Alper's gorgeous and intelligent debut intimately maps Yusuf's interior journey against the backdrop of the spectacular mountains and Black Sea of eastern Turkey. Tracking the changes from autumn to winter, Alper tragically etches the march of time that Yusuf is out of step with, a march that every human must endure without incurring regret.

 

-- Jonathan Wysocki