The Heavy Burden (2019)

Refugee Poetry

The Kurdish Iraqi poet and actor Zeravan Khalil travels with his dog through an Alpine gorge after fleeing from IS war and genocide. As he remembers the abomination, he writes a poem with the title “You drive me mad” in Kurmanji Kurdish. In his home country, Yazidic Kurds are forbidden to work in his profession. Then he eats his apple and wanders through Europe’s middle with more hope.

Head-On

With the intention to break free from the strict familial restrictions, a suicidal young woman sets up a marriage of convenience with a forty-year-old addict, an act that will lead to an outburst of envious love.

Bed Bug

Idris, who has made a habit of coming home late, comes home early that day. He sees his wife trying to wipe the lipstick off of her lips, and at the same time, the window of the house is open in a cloudy sky. The feeling of doubt has already begun to gnaw through Idris like a bed bug.

Gallipoli

As World War I rages, brave and youthful Australians Archy and Frank—both agile runners—become friends and enlist in the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps together. They later find themselves part of the Dardanelles Campaign on the Gallipoli peninsula, a brutal eight-month conflict which pit the British and their allies against the Ottoman Empire and left over 500,000 men dead.

Donkey in a Brahmin Village

A donkey strays into a village dominated by the upper caste Brahmins.

My Prostitute Love

Halil goes to a bar with his friends and meets Sabiha, a prostitute, and they fall in love. Two lovers want to escape their past and live together. However, Sabiha knows little about Halil's life, and she has to face some facts.

Au Hasard Balthazar

The story of a donkey Balthazar as he is passed from owner to owner, some kind and some cruel but all with motivations beyond his understanding. Balthazar, whose life parallels that of his first keeper, Marie, is truly a beast of burden, suffering the sins of humankind. But despite his powerlessness, he accepts his fate nobly.

Nefta Football Club

In the south of Tunisia, two football fan brothers bump into a donkey lost in the middle of the desert on the border of Algeria. Strangely, the animal wears headphones over its ears.

120

During the Sarikamis Battle, the Ottoman army runs out of ammunition and appeals to the people of Van for help, who happen to have supplies. However, the First World War is on and all men are fighting at four corners of the empire and therefore can not respond to to the appeal. The young children of Van want to do something...

Seaburners

Denise, a botanist, is working in the swamps in a part of Turkey, planting and researching local flora. In her evenings she sometimes meets with her lover Hamit, a simple man at first glance. But he is making his living with human trafficking which he keeps a secret from Denise. When Hamit learns that Denise is being sent back to her home country soon, one final trafficking job takes a dark outcome.

The Lamb

In a small village, young Mert is about to get traditionally circumcised, but the family does not have the money to follow up with the circumcision celebration. The family wants to be able to serve lamb meat to the guests at the celebration. Mert’s older sister scares him that if they cannot afford a lamb the father will slaughter him instead.

Barking Island

Constantinople, Ottoman Empire, 1910. There are too many stray dogs on the streets, so the government decides to deport thousands of them on a desert island, off the coast of the city.

The Breath

A small task force of the Turkish army have to defend a relay station in the middle of nowhere against a possible terrorist raid.

Blackboards

Itinerant Kurdish teachers, carrying blackboards on their backs, look for students in the hills and villages of Iran, near the Iraqi border during the Iran-Iraq war. Said falls in with a group of old men looking for their bombed-out village; he offers to guide them, and takes as his wife Halaleh, the clan's lone woman, a widow with a young son. Reeboir attaches himself to a dozen pre-teen boys weighed down by contraband they carry across the border; they're mules, always on the move. Said and Reeboir try to teach as their potential students keep walking. Danger is close; armed soldiers patrol the skies, the roads, and the border. Is there a role for a teacher? Is there hope?

The Angel of Vengeance: The Female Hamlet

Hamlet returns home from drama school in United States, after the cold-blooded assassination of her father by her uncle, who has married Hamlet’s mother. After seeing her father’s ghost, Hamlet decides to feign insanity, in order to get to the truth.

The Girl with the Red Scarf

Asya, a peasant girl, marries İlyas, a truck driver. The couple, who love each other very much, are separated when İlyas cheats on her, and their epic love story comes to an unexpected end. After that, Asya takes her son and wanders away, not knowing where she is going, until a familiar hand reaches out to help her selflessly.

Entanglement

As woodsmen, brothers Kemal and Cemal struggle with an uncertain future, living in a house inherited by their father, on the outskirts of a village. Kemal has always been a father to his brother. Nalân, arrives one day with Kemal, and adopts the house as her own. Her presence soothes Cemal, who's shaken by his mother’s death.

The Edge of Heaven

The lives of six German-Turkish immigrants are drawn together by circumstance: An old man and a prostitute forging a partnership, a young scholar reconciling his past, two young women falling in love, and a mother putting the shattered pieces of her life back together.

Ararat

Interrogated by a customs officer, a young man recounts how his life was changed during the making of a film about the Armenian genocide.

Steam: The Turkish Bath

Francesco and Marta run a husband-and-wife design company in Rome. When Francesco's aunt dies in Instanbul he travels there to sort out the hamam turkish steam bath that she left him. He finds a love and warmth in his relatives' Instanbul home that is missing from his life in Italy.

Bliss

A young woman of about 17 years old, named Meryem (Ozgu Namal), has been raped, and her village's customs call for her to be killed to restore honor and dignity to her family and village. The eldest son of the village leader, Cemal (Murat Han), is ordered to take Meryem to Istanbul and kill her, but at the last minute he cannot complete the task.

My Child

What happens when your child comes out to you? In this feature documentary, parents of lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans-gender individuals in Turkey intimately share their experiences with the viewer, as they redefine what it means to be parents in this conservative society.

Fate

Musa, a customs clerk, lives quietly with his mother. Tragedy and change come for him, as they do for everyone, and he must confront his own attitude towards life’s absurdity.

Envy

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.

Piano Girl

The story of an exile man who came from Russia. He is the last descended of his family.

The Small Town

Told from the perspective of two children, and in four parts which run parallel to seasons, The Small Town describes the relationships between members of a small-town family. Both brother and sister witness the complexities of the adult world, as well as the mysteries of life and nature.

Five Minarets in New York

Two Turkish anti-terrorist agents are sent to New York City on a mission to find and bring back the dangerous Islamic leader codenamed "Dajjal", believed to be hiding in there. Working with the FBI and NYPD, the agents orchestrate the arrest of Hadji Gumus, a well-respected Muslim scholar and family man who years before fled to the United States after being released from a Turkish prison, where he served time for murder. This tale love, friendship, peace and prejudices, takes us on a journey seeking to answer the question of whether innocence or guilt even matters to one who lusts for vengeance.

Only You

The passionate love between a former boxer and a beautiful blind woman.

The Impeccables

Two sisters in their early thirties find themselves isolated in the Aegean summer cottage of their childhood, as they must deal with their uneasy sibling relationship and confront their devastating recent past past.

Eve Dönüş

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".

5 Fingers

During WWII, the valet to the British Ambassador to Ankara sells British secrets to the Germans while trying to romance a refugee Polish countess.

Aftersun

Sophie reflects on the shared joy and private melancholy of a holiday she took with her father twenty years earlier. Memories real and imagined fill the gaps between miniDV footage as she tries to reconcile the father she knew with the man she didn't.

Dry Summer

A scheming tobacco farmer sets out to ruin his competition by diverting the local water to his own property.

Wild is the Spring

Through a series of vignettes from the ancient and war-torn Levant, WILD IS THE SPRING captures moments in the lives of diverse ethnic communities who struggle to survive when life descends into chaos.

War Pony

The interlocking stories of two Lakota boys growing up on Pine Ridge Reservation. At 23, Bill just wants to make something of himself. Meanwhile, 12-year-old Matho can’t wait to become a man. Bound by their shared search for belonging, each of the boys grapple with identity, family, and loss, as they navigate their unique paths to manhood.

Republic: The first steps of a country's struggle to stand up

In the enthusiasm of victory, the streets of Izmir are moaning with the voices of "Long live the Gazi, Long live the Army, Long live the Grand National Assembly". Latife Hanım's admiration for Mustafa Kemal is increasing day by day, whose house in Izmir is used as the Headquarters of the Commander-in-Chief. Meanwhile, Zübeyde Hanım wants to meet this young woman from İzmir who is interested in her son. Latife Hanım insists on hosting Mustafa Kemal's mother, who will come to Izmir, at her home. Fikriye Hanım, who takes care of Zübeyde Hanım in Çankaya Mansion and the little Abdürrahim whom Mustafa Kemal adopted while on the Eastern Front, is getting worse, but she tries not to show it to Mustafa Kemal, whom she loves to death. Fikriye, who had a coughing fit while playing the piano at a friends meeting at the Çankaya Mansion, was sent to a sanatorium in Munich against her will. While all this is going on, the war against the invaders continues at full speed.

Republic: Mustafa Kemal Pasha and Uşşakizade Latife Hanım got married.

Mustafa Kemal Pasha and Uşşakizade Latife Hanım got married. An agreement cannot be reached at the Lausanne Conference and England leaves Lausanne. Fikriye Hanım learns of Mustafa Kemal's marriage and runs away from the sanatorium.

Republic: The republic is enacted in the parliament and adopted by voting in the parliament.

Peace is celebrated all over the country. A republic is enacted in the parliament and adopted by voting in the parliament.

Cumhuriyet: Meclis, Türk Medeni Kanunu'nu kabul etti...

Some anti-republican groups are raiding police stations. The government closes all dervish lodges, sects are banned. The traitors who planned to assassinate Gazi are caught and prosecuted. Work has started to add the secularism clause to the constitution.

Republic: Mustafa Kemal Pasha started to work on the use of the new alphabet and international numbers.

Mustafa Kemal Pasha started to work on the use of the new Turkish alphabet and international numbers. Community centers are established. Two problems remained; removing the records placed on the straits and Hatay. Young Turkey has healed the wounds of war and has started to progress rapidly on the path of civilization.

Turkish Problems

A film trilogy telling the vicissitudes of a Turkish family, their quarrels, dilemmas, conversations and everyday life interspersed with ups and downs. The core of history is a gentlemen's duel for the title of the main character between Wąsacz and Jid and their competition for the favor of the main heroine. Then, indirectly, their friend Siwy joins the fight for this title.

The Confession

A taut, beautifully acted psychological drama about a husband who suspects his wife of having an affair, but is terrified that confronting her about it might prove she really is.