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Ömer Lütfi Akad, a pioneer of Turkish cinema who made over 40 films between 1948 and 1974 (and would carry on directing for television through 1979), died yesterday at the age of 95. Bilge Ebiri has essentially broken the news to the English-speaking world:

Along with Metin Erksan (director of the recently-restored Dry Summer), Akad was probably one of the two senior giants of Turkish cinema during a rather significant time — the period in the 1950s and 60s when the medium was moving away from the canned-theater efforts of early pioneers like Muhsin Ertugrul and starting to tackle more complicated material, against pretty much every odd in the universe. Neither society nor technology had yet caught up to the imaginations of these artists. The equipment was still ancient (the first Turkish film to edit together two separate audio tracks wouldn't come until 1978) and so was the political atmosphere: the country was at the time entering...