"Once Upon a Time in Anatolia" at Film Forum

Moon and Stars Project is pleased to support

ONCE UPON A TIME IN ANATOLIA
A Film by Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Presented by The Cinema Guild

Opening on Wednesday, January 4
Film Forum
209 W Houston St, New York, NY 10014

Wednesday, January 4 – Tuesday, January 17 • Two Weeks
Screening Times: 1:00 PM 5:30 PM 8:30 PM

For tickets, click here

Winner – Grand Prize; Cannes Film Festival 2011
2011/35mm/157 min.
In Turkish with English Subtitles

“Both beautiful and beautifully observed, with a delicate touch and flashes of humor and horror.”
– Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

“Turkey’s finest filmmaker…has made his finest movie to date. A bravura meditation on the inscrutable cosmos. Bleakly comic, superbly crafted, highly rigorous… confirms its maker’s international status.”
– J. Hoberman, Village Voice

“Masterful. Ceylan saves up and delivers his jewel-like surprises with the precision of a Chekhov.”
– Jonathan Romney, Sight & Sound

“A mesmerizing police procedural.”
– Eric Kohn, IndieWire

“A wonderful drama about a police investigation that takes law enforcers and a murder suspect into the desolate Anatolian countryside in search of the buried murdered victim. Also buried, as Ceylan and his remarkable actors reveal, are a host of hypocrisies, fears and unexpected motives that drive the characters and their actions.”
–Doris Toumarkine, Film Journal International

Cast & Credits

Written and Directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Produced by Zeynep Ozbatur Atakan
Featuring Muhammet Uzuner, Yılmaz Erdoğan, Taner Birsel, Ahmet Mümtaz Taylan, Fırat Tanış and Ercan Kesal

From the acclaimed director of Distant and Climates: In the dead of night, a group of men — including a police commissioner, a prosecutor, a doctor, and a murder suspect — drive through the tenebrous Anatolian countryside, the serpentine roads and rolling hills lit only by the headlights of their cars. They are searching for a corpse, the victim of a brutal murder. The suspect, who claims he was drunk, can’t remember where he buried the body. As the night draws on, details about the murder emerge and the investigators’ own secrets and hypocrisies come to light. Nothing is what it seems, and when the body is found, the real questions emerge.

Nuri Bilge Ceylan

Nuri Bilge Ceylan was born in Istanbul in 1959 and was brought up in the rural region of Antelonia. After initially studying engineering, he changed track and studied filmmaking at Mimar Sinan University in Istanbul. An accomplished photographer, he was first noticed for his 1995 short film Koza (The Cocoon), which was a Cannes Film Festival selection, later he shot his first full-length film, Kasaba (The Small Town), in 1997. The Small Town won the Special Prize of the Jury at the Nantes Film Festival, the Caligari Award at the Berlin Film Festival, and the Best Film and Best Cinematography Awards at Cologne Film Festival. Ceylan’s second feature film, Mayıs Sıkıntısı (Clouds of May) won 18 international awards including Best Film at Premiere Plans Film Festival, and the International Competition Section of the 19th International İstanbul Film Festival. Ceylan’s Uzak (Distant) won the Grand Prix and Best Actor Awards at Cannes Film Festival in 2003. His most recent film Once Upon a Time in Anatolia was awarded with the Grand Jury Prize at the 64th Cannes Film Festival in May 2011.

Filmography

1995     Koza  / The Cocoon (short)
1997     Kasaba / The Small Town
1999     Mayıs Sıkıntısı / Clouds of May
2002     Uzak / Distant
2006     İklimler / Climates
2008     Üç Maymun / Three Monkeys
2011     Bir Zamanlar Anadolu’da / Once Upon a Time in Anatolia