Thursday,
November 16 – Saturday, November 18
Turkish
Film Festival
Co-presented
by the Middle East Center
at the University of Pennsylvania
 Poised
between East and West, Turkish cinema reflects a divided society
- both deeply religious and ferociously secular - where men
and women frequently occupy separate spheres, and where the
long arm of state control extends from mud-walled villages to
Istanbul's crowded streets. Life there may be complicated, but
it makes for great material.
“Once
upon a time, we had one of the biggest film industries in the
world,” said producer/director Mevlut Akkaya, reminiscing on
the heyday of Turkish film in the 1960s and 70s. Now, Turkish
film is rising again, thanks to an explosion of new talent over
the last decade among filmmakers living both in and outside
of Turkey.
This
series is also co-presented by the Moon
and Stars Project, a non-profit organization that
showcases Turkish art and culture and promotes cultural exchange
between Turkey and the US.
Thursday,
November 16 at 7pm
Facing
Window (La Finestra Di Fronte)
dir.
Ferzan Ozpetek, Turkey/Italy, 2003, 35mm, 106 mins, Italian
w/ English subtitles
 Giovanna
and Filippo’s marriage is strained and filled with hostility.
She has built a voyeuristic fantasy life around Lorenzo, the
gorgeous young man whose apartment window faces hers. When Giovanna
and Filippo encounter an amnesiac old man on the streets of
Rome , Filippo will not abandon him, and against Giovanna’s
wishes, brings him to stay with them until they can discover
his identity. We learn the stranger is concentration camp survivor
Davide Veroli, a Jew whose homosexual lover died in the Holocaust.
Davide becomes the catalyst for change in Giovanna’s life: she
finally meets Lorenzo, and confronts the all the tempting options
for love and fulfillment that now seem attainable.
Friday,
November 17 at 7pm
Istanbul
Tales (Anlat Istanbul)
dir.
Umit Unal, Turkey, 2005, 35mm, 100 mins, color, Turkish w/ English
subtitles
Deftly
interweaving five contemporary vignettes done by five different
directors, Istanbul Tales gives the sense of having
been conceived by one creative mind. In a fast-paced grown-up
fairy tale, this colorful drama follows five sets of
characters whose lives intersect after a powerful gangster is
killed in a restaurant mob hit. A transsexual prostitute tries
to escape her pimp; the daughter of the dead gangster is saved
by a dwarf; a lost man is mistaken for a centuries old ghost;
a drug mule is bullied by her bosses and an aging clarinet player
is cuckolded by his beautiful wife.
Saturday,
November 18 at 2pm
On
The Road (Yolda)
dir.
Erden Kirel, Turkey, 2005, 35mm, 90 mins, color, Turkish w/
English subtitles
 Dedicated
to the memory of Turkish actor-director Yilmaz Guney (1937-1984)
who did several of his pictures by proxy from prison when he
was incarcerated for the murder of a Turkish judge, On
The Road (Yolda) is an extremely personal
work by veteran director Erden Kiral. Yolda tells
the story of two men’s reunion after a fall-out twenty years
earlier; brought together when Yilmaz asks his wife and his
friend Sedat to follow him as he is transported from one prison
to another. While driving through the vast expanse of the Turkish
countryside, they’re caught in a fog and must spend the night
in a motel. This stay forces Sedat to come to terms with his
mentor’s imprisonment as well as his own self-imposed isolation.
Yolda questions the meaning of freedom, and one individual’s
power to overcome all odds to gain that freedom.
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