Autumn

Synopsis:
Sentenced to prison in 1997 as a university student at the age of 22, Yusuf )Onur Saylak) is released on health grounds 10 years later. He returns to his village in the Black Sea region, where he's welcomed only by his sick and elderly mother. It turns out that his father died while he was in prison and his older sister got married and moved away to the city. Economic factors mean that it's almost exclusively old people who live in the mountain villages, and the only person Yusuf sees is his childhood friend Mikhail (Serkan Keskin). As autumn slowly gives way to winter, Yusuf meets Eka (Megi Kobaladze), a beautiful Georgian hooker. Neither the timing nor the circumstances are right for these two people from different worlds. Even so, love becomes a final desperate attempt to grasp life and elude loneliness.

About the director:
Born in 1975 in Artvin, Turkey, Özcan Alper studied physics and history at Istanbul University before starting work in 1999 as an assistant director and production manager on several feature and TV films. During this time he also wrote for the film magazine Yeni Films. In 2001 he made his first short, Grandmother, shot entirely in Hemsin, a dialect spoken in the north-east. It was the first Turkish film in that language. This first work won him several awards, which enabled him to find funding, in particular from the Turkish Ministry of Culture, for his first feature film, Sonbahar (Autumn). Özcan Alper has also made two documentaries: Voyage in the Time with a Scientist (2002) and Rhapsody and Melancholy in Tokai City (2005).

Official site

Trailer

Awards:
Best Director, 2009 Sofia International Film Festival

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