The Heavy Burden (2019)

The Wild Pear Tree

Fresh out of university, a Turkish young man with literary aspirations returns to his home village, and to his father, a debt-ridden man with a gambling problem.

Times and Winds

In a small, poor village leaning over high rocky mountains, the villagers are simple and diligent people who struggle to cope with a harsh nature. They earn their living off the earth and a few animals they feed. Fathers always prefer one of their sons. Mothers command their daughters ruthlessly. Ömer, the son of the imam, wishes hopelessly for the death of his father. When he understands that wishful thinking does not have any concrete results, he begins to search for childish ways to kill his father. Yakup is in love with his teacher, and one day after seeing his father spying on the teacher he dreams too, like Ömer, of killing his father. Yıldız studies and tries to manage the household chores imposed by her mother. She learns with irritation about the secrets of the relationship between men and women.

The Lark Farm

The Lark Farm is set in a small Turkish town in 1915. It deals with the genocide of Armenians, looking closely at the fortunes, or rather, misfortunes of one wealthy Armenian family.

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.

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.

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.

Donkey in a Brahmin Village

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

Midnight Express

Billy Hayes is caught attempting to smuggle drugs out of Turkey. The Turkish courts decide to make an example of him, sentencing him to more than 30 years in prison. Hayes has two opportunities for release: the appeals made by his lawyer, his family, and the American government, or the "Midnight Express".

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.

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...

Zorba the Greek

An uptight English writer traveling to Crete on a matter of business finds his life changed forever when he meets the gregarious Alexis Zorba.

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.

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.

Autumn

Arrested while a student in university, Yusuf is released from prison after ten years. He returns home and is welcomed by his sick and elderly mother. Soon he will meet Eka, a beautiful Georgian girl who is a sex worker, and love becomes a final desperate attempt to grasp life and elude loneliness.

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.

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.

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.

EO

The world is a mysterious place when seen through the eyes of an animal. EO, a grey donkey with melancholic eyes, meets good and bad people on his life’s path, experiences joy and pain, endures the wheel of fortune randomly turn his luck into disaster and his despair into unexpected bliss. But not even for a moment does he lose his innocence.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Home Coming

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".

Love in the Time of Corona

The movie follows Kurdistan during the Covid-19 crisis in 2019, and how it ruined relationships between loved ones.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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 Small Town

A story in four parts is told from the perspective of two children, showing life in school, in nature, with family and at home. All of this unfolding along with the seasons. The Small Town depicts life in the village, while also portraying the relationships between members of a small-town family, in a long centerpiece scene around a campfire with family members talking about the past, life and its disappointments. Both brother and sister witness the complexities and darkness of the adult world, as well as the mysteries of nature and wildlife.

Holiday

Sascha, the young and beautiful trophy girlfriend of a Danish drug lord, arrives at his holiday villa in the seaside town of Bodrum, on the Turkish Riviera, where she is welcomed into his inner circle. Under the summer sun, she lives a carefree dream of luxury and fun until she meets Tomas, a Dutch traveler trying to discover himself.

Krisha

When Krisha returns to her estranged family for Thanksgiving dinner, past demons threaten to ruin the festivities.

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.

Dry Summer

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

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.

Never Take No for an Answer

It's a story about a young Italian orphan boy taking his pet donkey to the Vatican to be blessed.

The Battle of Canakkale

Pilot Captain Salih Ekrem is a young air officer and one of the first Ottoman pilots.

Under the Stars

Louka, whose parents were killed in the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, persuades a beautiful smuggler to take him over the border to visit his village, where a magical experience awaits them.

Murat Göğebakan: Kalbim Yaralı

Turkish singer Murat Göğebakan embarks on a successful musical career, until he receives a terminal cancer diagnosis.

In Nowhere Land

Sükran's son Veysel works in a factory. Suffering as a result of her husband's political actions, she tries to save her son from the same fate.