|  BOATS
OUT OF WATERMELON RINDS
(Karpuz Kabugundan Gemiler Yapmak)
Turkey 2004 / 98m / English subtitles / Cert. PG
Director: Ahmet Uluçay
Cast: Ismail Hakki Taslak, Kadir Kaymaz, Gülayse Erkoç
An autobiographical first feature film from Ahmet Ulucay
who still lives in the village of Tepecik, where he was born.
It's the 60s and Recep and Mehmet are two boys crazy about
movies. After work, they spend their evenings building a film
projector, witnessed only by Crazy Omer, the village idiot.
But things begin to change when Recep falls for Nihal, the
eldest daughter of the widow Nezihe. His feelings are not
reciprocated, whereas Nihal's younger sister, Guler, is interested
in Recep who is definitely not interested in her...
 ENCOUNTER
(Karsilasma)
Turkey 2003 / 124m / English subtitles / Cert. 15
Director: Ömer Kavur
Cast: Ugur Polat, Lale Mansur, Çetin Tekindor
"Encounter, is the story of a man who believes that
he has been presented with a new life. He witnesses his son's
resurrection and finds the woman he has been looking for all
his life. All this is a miracle for him. However, as with
all miracles, it has to end. I tried to make the film with
minimum stylisation and just a few surrealistic touches. It
is the tale of an odd search covering extraordinary circumstances
in which the destinies of our heroes intercept and overlap."
Ömer Kavur
 EN
GARDE
Germany 2004 / 94m / English subtitles / Cert. 15
Director: Ayse Polat
Cast: Maria Kwiatkowsky, Pinar Erincin, Luk Piyes
Sixteen-year-old Alice is different from the other girls
in the Catholic educational institute where her mother has
placed her. She is a loner and because of her acute sense
of hearing she perceives the world around her differently
from other people. Then she meets Berivan, a Kurdish girl
waiting for a judgment from the German immigration authorities.
Gradually, Alice opens up to Berivan and they become friends.
But the situation between the two begins to dramatically go
out of control after Berivan falls in love with a boy called
Ilir...
 EVERYTHING
ABOUT MUSTAFA
(Mustafa Hakkinda Hersey)
Turkey 2004 / 119m / English subtitles / Cert. 15
Director: Cagan Irmak
Cast: Fikret Kuskan, Basak Köklükaya, Nejat Isler,
Serif Sezer
Life is great for Mustafa: he has a good job, a great wife
and a lovely child. He thinks it's all going to last forever,
but then his wife is killed in a car accident and everything
is turned upside down. His anger and frustration grow because
there was someone else in the car who survived: Fikret. Mustafa
begins to spy on him and finally he kidnaps Fikret. The questioning
begins but things spiral out of control and eventually Mustafa
must face his past.
 HEAD-ON
(Duvara Karsi)
Germany 2003 / 123m / English subtitles / Cert. 18
Director: Fatih Akin
Cast: Birol Ünel, Sibel Kekilli, Meltem Cumbul
"You can put an end to your life without killing yourself"
whispers the doctor. And Cahit whose suicide attempt has brought
him to the psychiatric clinic, knows what he means: just start
a new life. Sibel - like Cahit, Turkish-German - loves life
too much for a proper Muslim girl. To escape from the prison
of her devout, conservative family, she fakes a suicide attempt.
But it brings shame, not freedom and now only marriage can
save her. So she begs Cahit to marry her and, reluctantly,
he agrees...
 SCHOOL
(Okul)
Turkey 2004 / 103m / English subtitles / Cert. 15
Directors: Yagmur Taylan & Durul Taylan
Cast: Burak Altay, Nehir Erdogan, Sinem Kobal
A comedy thriller set in a boarding school where Guldem
is the most beautiful girl and her boy friend Ersin is both
the most handsome (and ambitious) pupil. As for Gokalp, he's
neither beautiful, handsome or ambitious - he's a writer and
a dreamer with few friends but a passion for Guldem. However,
Gokalp's biggest effect on the lives of Guldem, Ersin and
their school friends will come a year later when Gokalp has
become a ghost...
 TALES
OF INTRANSIGENCE (Inat Hikayeleri)
Turkey-Germany 2003 / 90m / English subtitles / Cert. 12A
Director: Reis Çelik
Cast: Tuncel Kurtiz, Sabri Tutal, Kemal Gültekin
This improvised film made by a film crew of two: The director
and an actor; in collaboration with members of a village community,
may be the first of its kind. It tells of the rivalry between
two forms of winter transport: the horse-drawn sleigh which
can take the short cut over the frozen lake and the red minibus
which needs to be more devious to beat it's rival. While the
race goes on other tales of intransigence are told: 'Wishbone',
'Five Straws One Broken Heart' and 'Saho, the Swindler'.
 UNDER
CONSTRUCTION (Insaat)
Turkey 2003 / 108m / English subtitles / Cert. 15
Director: Ömer Vargļ
Cast: Sevket Çoruh, Emre Kinay, Suna Pekuysal
A black comedy that casts a satirical eye over modern Turkey
through the story of Ali and Sudi construction workers on
a building site in a slum district of Istanbul. They dream
of saving enough money to emigrate to Italy, but nightmares
are closer at hand when they discover the site is being use
as a graveyard. Add a bunch of corrupt cops, a journalist
with a body to bury, and a lost video camera, and the stage
is set for an hilarious piece of cutting edge comedy.
 UZAK
(Distant)
Turkey 2002 / 110m / English subtitles / Cert. 15
Director: Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Cast: Muzaffer Özdemir, Mehmet Emin Toprak, Ebru Ceylan
The most internationally acclaimed Turkish film of recent
years is the bittersweet tale of the encounter between melancholic
and obsessive middle-aged photographer Mahmut and his unemployed
country boy cousin Yusuf, who has come to Istanbul to find
a job on a ship. Sometimes comic, sometimes sad, but always
visually beautiful Uzak offers great insight into its themes
of friendship and loneliness and features wonderful performances
from Muzaffer Ozdemir as Mahmut and the late Mehmet Emin Toprak
as Yusuf.
 THE
WAITING ROOM (Bekleme Odasi)
Turkey 2003 / 94m / English subtitles / Cert. 15
Director: Zeki Demirkubuz
Cast: Zeki Demirkubuz, Nurhayat Kavrak, Nilüfer Açikin
The third and final part of Zeki Demirkubuz's magnificent
trilogy 'Tales About Darkness'. Ahmet, viewed by others as
an idealist but by himself as an arrogant so-and-so, wants
to film Dostoievsky's 'Crime and Punishment'. However, he
now feels complete indifference towards the project, as he
similarly does towards his girlfriend and indeed, his entire
life. His outlook is not helped by the probability that he
has cancer. But life, and film-making, goes on and so who
will play the novel's hero Raskolnikov?
 WHERE'S
FIRUZE? (Neredesin Firuze?)
Turkey 2004 / 138m / English subtitles / Cert. 15
Director: Ezel Akay
Cast: Haluk Bilginer, Özcan Deniz, Demet Akbag
A colourful, lively, fantastical, almost surreal, look at
the modern music business. Hayri and Orhan are two music producers
who are deeply in debt. But help is on the way in the form
of singer Ferhat who arrives from Germany. However getting
Ferhat's recordings widely heard is difficult when you owe
money to everyone, not least record producers and distributors.
Then a live television show and a mysterious woman come to
the rescue...
FATIH AKIN RETROSPECTIVE
 SHORT
SHARP SHOCK (Kisa ve Acimasiz)
Germany 1998 / 100m / English subtitles / Cert. 15
Director: Fatih Akin
Cast: Mehmet Kurtulus, Aleksandar Jovanovic, Adam Bousdoukos
Fatih Akin intertwines love, sex, death and honour into
a powerful, touching and fast-paced story about three friends
caught in a trap of their own making. Gabriel the Turk, Bobby
the Serb and Costa the Greek used to be a neighbourhood gang
in Hamburg. But much has changed since Gabriel went to prison.
He has decided to grow up, but his buddies are holding him
back. Bobby, in particular, still has dreams of joining the
mafia. Only Alice, Bobby's girlfriend, understands Gabriel
- better than she understands her own boyfriend.
 IN
JULY (Temmuzda)
Germany 2000 / 88m / English subtitles / Cert.15
Director: Fatih Akin
Cast: Moritz Bleibtreu, Christiane Paul, Mehmet Kurtulus,
Idil Üner
Daniel, a shy young Hamburg physics teacher falls head over
heals in love with a beautiful girl called Melek, and spontaneously
decides to follow her to Istanbul. Together with a female
friend, July, who secretly worships him, he sets off on what
turns out to be a wild odyssey through south-eastern Europe.
Beaten up, seduced, robbed, stoned for the first time and
busted by Turkish border guards, Daniel learns that happiness
is worth fighting for...
 SOLINO
Germany 2002 / 120m / English subtitles / Cert. 15
Director: Fatih Akin
Cast: Moritz Bleibtreu, Barnaby Metschurat, Antonella Attili
Romano and Rosaand and their sons Gigi and Giancarlo move
from sunny Italy to the industrial heartland of 1960s Germany
and open the first pizza parlour in the neighbourhood. While
Romano is soon completely wrapped up in his work, Rosa continues
to suffer from homesickness. Gigi and Giancarlo enjoy their
new found adolescent freedom but they will soon become rivals
in the quest for love and success and each of them wants to
be the first to answer the big question: What is really important
in life?
DOCUMENTARIES
 PARALLEL
TRIPS (Paralel Yolculuklar)
Turkey-Greece 2004 / 120m / English & Turkish subtitles
/ Cert. 15
Directors: Dervis Zaim & Panicos Chrysanthou
Cyprus: a divided Mediterranean island that has been a flashpoint
between Greeks and Turks for almost half a century. From both
sides of the conflict, Greek director Panicos Chrysanthou
and Turkish director Dervis Zaim record the human dramas that
unfolded during the war of 1974 and the legacy that remains
today. This is a moving document whose common perspective
can only help to heal old wounds. As Zaim says: "We know
we can live together, but we still have to ask why we did
this to each other. "
 PYLA
- LIVING TOGETHER SEPARATELY (Pile - Beraber Ayri Yasamak)
Greece 2003 / 52m / English & Turkish subtitles / Cert.
15
Director: Elias Demetriou
Between northern Cyprus, home to the Turkish population
and the Greek Cypriot south lies 'No Mans Land' administered
by the UN. This candid and illuminating documentary looks
at life in the village of Pyla/Pile where Greek and Turkish
residents have lived peacefully together for thirty years.
However, as the villagers reveal, there is still an atmosphere
of suspicion on both sides. Then in April 2003 the borders
are opened. How will this affect the two communities?
 WHICH
CYPRUS? (Hangi Kibris?)
Turkey 2004 / 93m / English subtitles / Cert. 15
Director: Rüstem Batum
A powerful film about a country divided by war and its longing
for peace. On April 23, 2003 the border separating the Greek
and the Turkish communities in Cyprus was opened after 30
years. Which Cyprus tells the stories of people travelling
to "the other side" of their divided country and
presents the views of politicians, peace activists, journalists
and clergymen. This complete and objective picture of a divided
society offers a candle of hope to other troubled regions
of the world.
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