Sardunya

Despite its unconventional rhythm, Sardunya, the first feature film of Cagil Bocutoglu, manages to turn the risk it takes into a reward and draws the audience in from beginning to end. The film, which unfolds the family tragedies that we can all relate to in different levels through a father-daughter axis, successfully blends drama with crime genre. Sardunya, which can appeal to both festival and mainstream audiences, definitely deserves to be watched with its successful scenario paradigm and delicious plans that resemble Scandinavian cinema. Boldly putting a young female protagonist at the center, the film makes us realize a deficiency in Turkish cinema and opens up a new fresh door. It is certain that Sardunya promises much more than a first film.

I had watched Bocut before on Flutv and then watched the commercials he directed.

Sardunya is a very grounded production for a first film.

I think Çagan's self-confidence stems from the fact that this is his first film, but not his first directorial.

While my commercial or video clip directors often struggled during the transition to cinema, Çagan had no trouble in this regard.

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.

Sardunya (Geranium), the director's first feature film, is about a dramatic father-daughter relationship in a middle-upper-class family. In the movie, the dead-ends and conflicts of this relationship, which we watch from beginning to end as a "fight for competence", are handled on the basis of a legal event. In a family where the mother is absent; diseases, drugs, laws, bureaucracy and legal process intervene between father and daughter. That is, lack of mourning turns into intense conflict and anger triggered by all these actions. I think that the director's cinematographic success is in this direction. Because I think it is very difficult to visualize a psychic conflict concretely. In this sense, the film offers a great visual feast. I definitely recommend Sardunya, which returned with the best first film, best cinematography and best actress awards from the IKSV Istanbul Film Festival. It is one of the films worth watching in new-age Turkish cinema.