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Sardunya (2021)
A Remarkable new voice from Turkish cinema
This is the story of 19-year-old Defne, who lives in Istanbul, goes to her hometown Urla after learning that her father had a stroke and witnessed the death of her aunt there. Played by Elif Elhih, who won the Best Actress award at Istanbul International Film Festival, Defne is forced to choose between her conscience and her freedom after this traumatic event. The director's first feature film draws attention with its cinematography. The film, which managed to capture a certain intensity visually, adopts a different attitude while telling its story, which includes quite traumatic events. Despite all its problematic aspects, the relationship between Defne and her father Nadir, played by Ali Seckiner Alici, is handled in the company of calm and cold-blooded dialogues. This path makes the storytelling of the film different and keeps the tone of the plot away from becoming melodramatic. While the film aims to reflect the nature of the relationship between Defne and Nadir in a simple way, it relies heavy subjects such as suicide, bureaucracy, adolescent and hypocracy. I might say it is one of the very good first films I've watched in Turkey.