CAIRO - Hoping for some fun and entertainment? Interested in Turkish comedy and drama? If so, you should go to Cairo Opera House every night from April 15-22. The Turkish Embassy in Cairo, in co-operation with the Cultural Development Fund and the Yunus Emre Turkish Culture Centre, is organising a Turkish film week, which will run on the above dates. A number of specially selected films will be screened at the Artistic Creativity Centre, Cairo Opera House. All films start at 7pm. One of these films, The Honey (2010), starring Bora Altas, Erdal Besikçioglu and Tülin Özen and directed by Semih Kaplanogluit, tells the story of a young boy, whose best friend is his father, who supports his family's modest life with the honey he collects from tall trees in the forests of the remote Turkish countryside. Yusuf is a quiet boy, and his mother is concerned for his future. Perhaps he will follow in his father's footsteps, or perhaps school will offer him other opportunities. But the honey crop is failing, and Yusuf has trouble learning how to read. The greatest fear strikes when Yusuf's father doesn't return home from the forest. Distant (2002), starring Muzaffer Özdemir, Emin Toprak and Zuhal Gencer and directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan, relates the story of Mahmut, a 40-year-old independent photographer, a ‘village boy made good' ��" at least professionally in the big city (Istanbul in this case). After his wife leaves him, he suffers an existential crisis. Then along comes his cousin, Yusuf, who has left his native village after a local factory closed, leaving over half the local men without jobs. He looks to Istanbul for salvation: a job on board a ship sailing abroad, at once exciting and crucial for supporting his family in the desperately poor village. Another film, My Father and My Son (2005), starring Çetin Tekindor, Fikret Kuskan and Hümeyra and directed by Çagan Irmak, is all about Sadik, a young rebel who was politically active as a university student and became a left-wing journalist in the 1970s, despite his father's wanting him to become an agricultural engineer and take control of their family farm in an Aegean village. On the dawn of September 12, 1980, when a merciless military coup hits the country, they cannot find access to any hospital or a doctor, and his wife dies while giving birth to their only child, Deniz. After a long period of torture, trials and jail time, Sadik returns to his village with little Deniz, knowing that it will be hard to put things right with his father, Huseyin. Check The Gazette listings every day to see what films are showing.
