Don't Let Them Shoot the Kite

When a woman is sent to prison for drug smuggling, Barış, her young son, is sent with her, as is the custom in Turkey. Inside this all-women’s penitentiary, Barış (Ozan Bilen) searches for companionship and guidance—and finds them both in the form of Inci (Nur Sürer), a political prisoner with whom he forms a very special bond. A beautifully observed, tender story of the growing affection between a woman and a child who is not her own, Tunç Başaran’s film, with a screenplay by Feride Çiçekoğlu based on her novel, builds an effective counterpoint between the prison world, with its discipline, intrigues and threat of violence, and the private space Inci and Barış manage to create for themselves. Voted Best Turkish Film of the Year at the 1989 Istanbul Film Festival.