‘Araf (Somewhere in Between) – Yesim Ustaoglu’

(TR/FR/DE, 2012, 124’, OV, ond. st. FR + NL)

Zehra and Olgun spend most of their young lives working in a service station cafeteria near a lonely highway. Their monotonous work shifts are broken up only by sparks of naive expectations of a brighter future. The once important industrial area is now a faceless place of economic waste and unemployment. Most of the area's occupants have escaped to the big city in search of opportunity. But Zehra, Olgun and their friends still remain, caught somewhere in between the past and an uncertain future. Zehra dreams that love will take her away from her meaningless job and life and becomes fascinated by an older truck driver. As Zehra's desire for Mahur turns into a tragic first love, her rebellious friend Olgun becomes more and more frustrated, not yet a young man on his own. Zehra and Olgun will experience a bittersweet rite of passage, leading to both suffering and awakening.

Yesim Ustaoglu

Born in 1960 in Turkey, Yesim Ustaoglu grows up in Trabzon along the Black Sea. She has worked as architect in Istanbul and, later, as journalist and film critic. Her first feature film, Journey to the Sun, tells the story of a friendship between a Turkish girl and a Kurd one. Pandora’s Box (2008) is her fourth feature film and the most successful: it is projected at the San Sebastian International Film Festival and wins the Gold Shell.