In a remote village in eastern Turkey, an art teacher named Samet (Deniz Celiloglu) enters his fourth and final year at an undesirable state-mandated teaching post. Before he leaves, however, he will have to navigate two tricky relationships: the first with Sevim (Ece Bagci), a young student who accuses him of inappropriate behaviour and kickstarts a formal investigation; the second with Nuray (Merve Dizdar), a fellow educator and potential love interest, whose political engagement challenges his well-worn apathy. Both will push him into existential crisis, forcing him to reconsider his place in the world. With About Dry Grasses, Palme d’Or-winning filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylan delivers his richest, most expansive film yet. Against the harsh climes and forbidding landscapes of the Eastern Anatolian steppes, the Turkish director unfolds a philosophically profound tale of idealism and inaction, anchored by commanding performances from Dizdar (who won the Best Actress prize at Cannes) and Celiloglu. Novelistic in scale and yet startlingly intimate, this is a cinematic experience like no other.
Best Actress, Cannes 2023
Community Partner
Merve Dizdar, Deniz Celiloglu, Musab Ekici, Ece Bağci, Erdem Şenocak
Turkey/France/Germany/Sweden
2023
Showcase
In Turkish with English subtitles
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits
Executive Producer
Mediha Didem Türemen
Producer
Alexandre Mallet-Guy, Janine Jackowski, Jonas Dornbach, Maren Ade, Nadir Öperli, Kristina Börjeson, Anthony Muir, Sébastien Beffa
Screenwriter
Akin Aksu, Ebru Ceylan, Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Cinematography
Cevahir Şahin, Kürşat Üresin
Editor
Oğuz Atabaş, Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Original Music
Philip Timofeyev, Giuseppe Verdi
Art Director
Meral Aktan
Director
Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Nuri Bilge Ceylan was born in Istanbul on January 26, 1959. In 1976, he started studying chemical engineering at the Istanbul Technical University, At the end of 1993, he started shooting his first short film, Koza. The film was screened in Cannes in May 1995 and became the first Turkish short film selected for the Cannes Film Festival. Uzak (2003) won the Grand Prix and the Best Actor Award for the two leads at Cannes in 2003. His next films all won awards at Cannes. In 2006, Climates won the FIPRESCI International Critics’ Award, in 2008 Three Monkeys won the Best Director Award and in 2011 Once Upon a Time in Anatolia won the Grand Prix again. In 2014, his seventh feature film Winter Sleep won the Palme d’Or and the FIPRESCI International Press Award. With The Wild Pear Tree, in 2018, he returned to the Official Selection in Competition at the Cannes Film Festival.
Filmography: Three Monkeys (2008); Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (2011); Winter Sleep (2014); The Wild Pear Tree (2018)
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
Hanging by a Wire
The Himalayas, Aug 22, 2023: a cable car bearing 8 passengers (six of them schoolkids) is left dangling 900 feet above the ground when two out of three cables snap. This nailbiting documentary recounts the increasingly frantic rescue attempts.
The Sun Never Sets
At the suggestion of her much older (divorced) boyfriend, Wendy (Dakota Fanning) takes a summer to reevaluate her life and date other people. She's reluctant at first, but then reconnects with an old flame... A gentle indie comedy from Joe Swanberg.
A Sad and Beautiful World
This Lebanese love story chronicles the romance between a level-headed businesswoman and a romantic restauranteur across several decades in wartorn Beirut. It's funny, charming, melancholy and you'll feel it all.