Burning Days (Kurak Günler)
Emin Alper
The questions this film leaves its audience with are as burning as the eponymous heat of the title. Emre is the new prosecutor in the small Turkish town of Balkaya, which is struggling with water scarcity due to climate change. Groundwater is drained. creating huge holes in the earth on the outskirts of the city. Responsible for the resulting trial against the mayor, Emre soon finds himself caught in a web of political intrigue. When a young woman is raped, he has to wonder if he is only a victim and saviour but actually a perpetrator as well.
Burning Days tells the story of the consequences of climate change and patriarchy in grand pictures and urgency.
For political reasons, the film’s funding in Turkey was withdrawn.
20 April 2023
20:00 h, Eldorado Filmtheater
More information
| Direction | Emin Alper |
| Country | Turkey |
| Year | 2022 |
| Duration | 127 min |
| Language | Turkish with German subtitles |
| Production | Nadir Öperli, Kerem Catay, Marten Swaart |
| Co-production | Stienette Bosklopper, Viola Fügen, Anita Juka, Laurent Lavolé, Fatih Sakiz, Maarten Swart, Yorgos Tsourgiannis, Michael Weber |
| Cast | Ekin Koç, Selahattin Paşalı, Hatice Aslan, Selin Yeninci, Sinan Demirer, Eylül Ersöz, Ali Seçkiner Alici, Erdem Senocak, Nizam Namidar, Erol Babaoglu, Ismail Bahadir Peker, Enver Husrevoglu, |
| Camera | Christos Karamanis |
| Script | Emin Alper |
| Editing | Özcan Vardar, Eytan Ipeker |
| Sound | Krešimir Rodić |
| Music | Stefan Will |
Antalya Golden Orange Festival 2022: 6 Awards, a.o. for Best Film; Cannes 2022: Nominee Queer Palm & Un Certain Regard Award
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About the Director
"Emin Alper studied economics and history at the Bogazici University in Istanbul and received his doctorate in Turkish Modern History. His debut film “Beyond the Hill” (2012) received numerous awards such as the Caligari Prize of the Berlinale Forum and Best Picture at the Asia Pacific Awards. The film has been shown at more than 30 festivals around the world and released in cinemas in France and Germany. His second feature film “Frenzy” (2015) had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival, where he won the Special Jury Prize. Emin Alper teaches Modern History at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of Istanbul Technical University." (Komplizen Film)
Press Reviews
“Alper’s Cannes debut would have deserved a prize in the competition. Although the political intrigue in which Emre is embroiled is rather a subcomplex, his portrait of a society in which no one trusts anyone, in which elections are bought by village populists with simple promises and in which homophobia is openly staged, is bravura for the genre. ” (Andreas Busche, Tagesspiegel)
The Director About the Film
„The main motivation was to say something about the political nightmare atmosphere we have been living in our country in recent years. The wave of authoritarianism in question is, of course, a very universal process. However, Turkey is one of the countries where the most extreme and right-wing version of this universal trend is experienced. What we have experienced in the last six years is also unique in the history of the Republic of Turkey. I wanted to produce something about this traumatic political process that has diffused into our personal world, and to somehow reflect the feelings of suffocation, helplessness and loneliness we experience.“ (Emin Alper in an interview with DuvaR)
International Feature Film Program
