Keswick Film Festival

Synopsis

‘Nuri Bilge Ceylan is one of the most significant movie-makers to have emerged this century ...His finest work to date, ‘Once Upon a Time in Anatolia’, is a carefully controlled masterpiece.’ - Philip French, Observer.

This feeling was echoed at Cannes, where the film won the Jury Prize in 2011. The story is played out in one night as we watch 12 men searching the Steppes for a dead body. Gradually we realise that two of the men are suspects for the murder, the others are policemen, gravediggers, a doctor... There is little in the way of traditional action, instead Ceylan leaves it to us to work out what has happened, what is going on, with the dialogue just giving us hints; like the police, we can only gradually understand the crime.

As the film moves towards daylight, the focus switches more towards the doctor. Their meeting with a young woman unsettles him...‘just as, we imagine, Ceylan hopes to unsettle us as he takes us with him on this compelling, masterly journey. ‘ - Dave Calhoun, Time Out