Réalisateur : Özcan ALPER

1er long métrage du réalisateur, fiction

Durée : 1h46

Straight our of prison, the once political active Yusuf returns to his Black- Sea hometown. It isn’t just redemption he seeks but a peaceful asylum for his numbered days. His quiet life will take a passionate turn when he meets the beautiful Eka. The stunning début of Turkish Özcan Alper, this film speaks to your heart with its genuineness and exalting images.

Autumn is an intricately woven inner journey covering the insuppressible past, the fleeting present and the lack of a promising future. But despite all, it is the hope for change, which once drove, and still drives, the characters to firmly grip their lives. Such is Yusuf: in 1997 he was a politically active left-wing student; in 2007, he is a disillusioned misfit. After a decade of imprisonment for his lost cause, he returns to his native village in the eastern Black Sea region. His widowed mother is more than happy to welcome him, but the overbearingly beautiful mountains of his homeland only deepen his self-doubt and isolation. One day, meandering in a tavern with his childhood friend Mikail, Yusuf encounters a similarly wounded soul. She is the ethereal Eka, a Georgian prostitute who yearns for the day she can reunite with her daughter across the border. These kindred spirits will help each other to confront their darkest fears.
Autumn is one of those long-awaited, magical yet brutal films that acutely tackle the issues of forsaken young generations in Turkey whose struggle for social change has cost them dearly – physically and emotionally. Alper’s evocative and sublime images of the present, mixed with intense raw footages of the recent past, brings to life a riveting reflection of a man in search of his deepest core.
(EY, IFFR 2009)

Turkey, Germany 2008

Director: Özcan Alper
Scenario: Özcan Alper
Photography: Feza Çaldiran
Editor: Adnan Elial
Production design: Canan Çayir
Sound design: Muhammed Mokhtary

Producer
Feyzullah Serkan Acar
Kadir Sözen
Kuzey Film Production
Filmfabrik Spiel-und Dokumentarfilmproduktion

Cast
Onur Saylak
Raife Yenigül
Megi Kobaladze
Serkan Keskin
Nino Lejava
Sibel Öz
Cihan Çamkerten
Serhan Pirpir
Yasar Güven

Length: 106′


2009 | 38th IFFR – International Film Festival Rotterdam | January 21 – February 1, 2009 | www.filmfestivalrotterdam.com
* Selection (Signals: Young Turkish Cinema)