In Sack and Ashes

An aspiring young filmmaker gets involved with an eccentric gangster for the financing of his first film.

Guner Sernikli is a government official who, with his wife and their wheelchair bound daughter, has been assigned as the head librarian to this isolated province, virtually an exile since there is no library in the village. The family is warmly welcome, but these are the years of political anarchy and leftist/rightist clashes in big cities and the youth of the village inevitably follow the tides. They arrive in Vizontele, just as the situation is becoming really absurd. Guner brings wisdom; his daughter Tuba brings beauty, innocence and love. Some like the Mayor, Nazmi Dogan and crazy Emin appreciate these things but they are in the minority and confusion continues to reign. The story is based on the memories of writer-director Yılmaz Erdoğan of the last summer of his childhood in Hakkâri, Turkey in 1980.

In East Los Angeles, an 18-year-old struggles between her ambitions of going to college and the desires of her domineering mother for her to get married, have children, and oversee the small, rundown family-owned textile factory.

In a small American town, 16-year-old Lucy is left to largely raise herself, managing the household while her immature mother works and her father is away in Canada for months at a time. As her parents' emotional distance intensifies, Lucy explores her own sexuality with her childhood best friend, Kenny.

The comical story of Şaban, who came to Istanbul to earn his dowry and, by chance, became a famous folk singer known as Şaban Ballıses.