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There is an inherent connection between growing up and moving to a bigger city. When one’s ambitions and dreams cannot be contained in their small town, moving out is the obvious, and often the only answer. There’s a difference between someone who is new to the city versus someone who’s been living there over a couple of decades. The latter admires the zeal of the newcomer, who’s ready to take on challenges and climb the ladder. The one who’s been living in the bustling city for decades is often envious of the newcomer’s innocence. After all, they too had once moved to a new place, hoping to become a version of themselves they’d always envisioned, but their dreams never came true.

Netflix’s Turkish series, Istanbul Encyclopedia, is a poignant exploration of Istanbul through the eyes of a newcomer as well as someone...

Many might disagree with this, but Turkish films know how to play with human emotion. The finesse with which Turkish directors craft their movies and imbue them with emotions is something that’s missing from a lot of modern cinema; be it comedy or thriller, Turkish films are second to none. Mehmet Binay and Carner Alper’s latest film, Bihter, is no exception. Balancing themes like infidelity, courage, and cowardice, Bihter chronicles the story of the protagonist with the same name, who became the victim of her desires and caught romantic feelings for Behlül, her husband’s relative.

Spoilers Ahead

Who Is Bihter? Who Does She Marry?

The movie introduced Bihter (Farah Zeynep Abdullah) as a young woman relishing the pleasures of life. Like all her sisters, she wanted to fall in love with a rich man who could give her everything she wanted. Even though Bihter was born into a rich family,...

Private Lesson is a Rom-Com movie directed by Kivanç Baruönü, starring Bensu Soral and Halit Özgür San.

Premise

Posing as a private tutor, Azra secretly coaches students on achieving their goals in life and love – but not without a bumps on the road.

Movie Review

A quirky and formulaic Rom-Com that is as plastic as can be. The impeccable scenography, sterile photography, beautiful cast, and a screenplay that will not risk too much, and yet manages to amuse, are the ingredients in this, a more lighthearted film.

If you are seeking a really edgy romantic comedy, this is not it. ‘Private Lesson’ is nice and quotidian in all its artificial perfection.

With a good cast that successfully walks the tightrope between super insipid yet convincing acting, in a set that is staged to portray the delightful lives of its characters, we are told this slightly entertaining tale. It is contemporary,...

"Rule number one: you're going to do what I tell you." Netflix has revealed an official trailer for a Turkish romantic comedy called Private Lesson, arriving for streaming on Netflix starting this December. Netflix has been releasing more & more localized content to live up to agreements they've made with each country to produce a lot more content there in exchange for providing tons of films for viewers. What is this romcom all about? Posing as a private tutor, Azra secretly coaches students on achieving their goals in life and love — but not without a few bumps in the road. The cast of the film includes Bensu Soral as Azra, Halit Özgür Sarı, Helin Kandemir, Rami Narin, Hatice Aslan, Hülya Gülşen Irmak, Murat Karasu, Elif Ceren Balıkçı, Deniz Altan, and Esengül Yılmaz. This seems like a quirky Turkish reinvention of the Cyrano de Bergerac story, with a woman falling for...

Watching a film that reminds you so much of your own experiences can be either a pleasure or a torture. “A Tale of Three Sisters” reminded me how similar Greek and Turkish people are, but some “missteps” here and there did not allow me to call it a pleasure, at least not completely. Let us take things from the beginning though.

“A Tale of Three Sisters” is screening at Thessaloniki International Film Festival

The story revolves around three sisters, who find themselves together after many years, under the roof of their father, Sevket, in the mountains of Anatolia. Havva, the youngest, has just returned from the job she had in the city, taking care of a child, after a tragedy that ended up with the kid dead. Nurhan, the middle one, is also dismissed from a similar job in another house, after her temper got the best of her, ending...

In a small village in the mountains of northeastern Turkey, three peasant sisters uneasily reunite under their father’s rustic roof in Emin Alper’s opaque, oddly theatrical “A Tale of Three Sisters.” Stunningly lensed in widescreen amidst the rocky peaks, the film struggles to excite admiration outside the visuals, forcing the viewer to vainly search for what exactly it was Alper wished to achieve. Bearing no evident connection to Chekhov’s “Three Sisters” apart perhaps from the girls’ desire, like Irina Sergeyevna, to live in town, this ultimately uninteresting drama is undermined by characters of little discernible intelligence whose plight will leave many viewers apathetic, partly due to the way dialogue seems to be artificially recited rather than naturally delivered. Outside a few festivals and Turkish showcases, it’s hard to imagine who’ll buy this “Tale.”

Unlike Alper’s previous feature “Frenzy,” with its clear parallels to the political situation today,...

A Tale of Three Sisters

Turkish director Emin Alper returns with his third feature, A Tale of Three Sisters, a 1980s set period piece. Produced by Nadir Operli (who also produced Alper’s sophomore film Frenzy in 2015 as well as the Jessica Woodsworth and Peter Brosens title The King of the Belgians), the feature stars Kayhan Açikgöz, Cemre Ebuzziya, Helin Kandemir, Müfit Kayacan, and Ece Yüksel. Emre Erkmen lensed the feature. Alper’s 2012 debut Beyond the Hill won an award out of Berlin’s Forum sidebar. His 2015 sophomore film Frenzy competed in Venice and won a Special Jury Prize.…...

Nine titles announced for Berlinale, which runs Feb 7-17.

The first films have been announced for the 2019 Berlin International Film Festival Competition and Berlinale Special sections.

The Competition line-up includes new films by Fatih Akin (The Golden Glove), François Ozon (By the Grace of God) and Denis Côté (Ghost Town Anthology).

The other three films in the strand are Marie Kreutzer’s The Ground Beneath My Feet, Angela Schanelec’s I Was at Home, but and Emin Alper’s A Tale of Three Sisters. All are world premieres except By the Grace Of God which is an international premiere.

The...

The Berlin Film Festival has revealed the first wave of titles for its competition lineup, including new films from François Ozon, Marie Kreutzer, Denis Côté and Fatih Akin. Charles Ferguson’s Watergate documentary is among the Berlinale Special titles.

The first nine Competition and Berlinale Special films were revealed today, alongside the previously announced opening film, The Kindness of Strangers by Lone Scherfig.

Festival favourites Akin (In The Fade) and Ozon (In The House) return with German-language thriller The Golden Glove and French-language drama By The Grace Of God, respectively. The former follows a serial killer who strikes fear in the hearts of residents of Hamburg during the early 1970s. The latter looks at a real-life case of sexual abuses allegedly committed by a French priest in the late 1980s. Oscar-winner Ferguson (Inside Job) will present anticipated 260-minute feature doc Watergate, which is sure to draw plenty of contemporary parallels.