Acı Pirinç

In the southeast region of Turkey, the Kurdish family of Altun lives in a small mountainside village plagued by a 25-year war that makes their daily lives a hellish struggle. As the war intensifies, the family is forced to migrate west to the city of Istanbul.

A stagnant and gloomy village in the 1980s. Reyhan, Nurhan, and Havva, three sisters were sent to town as 'besleme' (foster child and maid). Since they fail their foster parents for different reasons, they are sent back to their father's house in their poor village. Deprived of their dreams of a better life, they try to hold on to each other.

A young art teacher hopes to be transferred to Istanbul after completing his mandatory duty in a remote village school in Anatolia. After accusations of inappropriate contact with a student surface, his hopes of escape fade and he descends further into an existential crisis.

The film is a love story. However, it is not a story about the love between two people, but rather a story about the love and affection that a group of people feel for life and for each other. The film depicts all kinds of love, from east to west, from schoolchildren to villagers, from young to old, in both an emotional and humorous way.

Young teen girl Xiu Xiu is sent away to a remote corner of the Sichuan steppes for manual labor in 1975 (sending young people to there was a part of Cultural Revolution in China). A year later, she agrees to go to even more remote spot with a Tibetan saddle tramp Lao Jin to learn horse herding.

An uninterrupted rehearsal of Chekhov's 'Uncle Vanya' plays out by a company of actors. The setting: their run-down theater with an unusable stage and crumbling ceiling. The play is shown act by act with the briefest of breaks to move props or for refreshments. The lack of costumes, real props and scenery is soon forgotten.