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About Dry Grasses

Kuru Otlar Üstüne

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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

Director
Cast

Merve Dizdar, Deniz Celiloglu, Musab Ekici, Ece Bağci, Erdem Şenocak

Credits
Country of Origin

Turkey/France/Germany/Sweden

Year

2023

Series

Showcase

Language

In Turkish with English subtitles

Film Contact
18+
197 min
Award Winners Drama

Book Tickets

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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)

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