In Gürcan Keltek’s hypnotic fiction debut, which premiered in competition at the 2024 Locarno Film Festival, the boundaries between physical reality and spiritual transcendence slowly dissolve.
After a long hospital stay, Akın returns home deeply disillusioned by Turkey’s failing healthcare system and confronted with the realization that his former life has irreversibly slipped away. Confined largely to his parents’ house, he withdraws from the world, venturing outside only occasionally.
During these rare outings, moments of ecstatic surrender emerge. Seeking solace beyond the limitations of his body and surroundings, Akın turns increasingly toward faith, memory and the possibility of communion with the divine. With characteristic visual intensity, director Gürcan Keltek crafts an immersive meditation on illness, isolation and spiritual longing, where everyday life gradually takes on an oneiric, almost metaphysical dimension.
The Rode Tulp Film Festival – RTFF is an annual Turkish film festival in the Netherlands. With a diverse program, the festival showcases the richness and diversity of cinema from Turkey and the region: from inspiring arthouse feature films and documentaries to short films and children’s films.
Running time: 130 minutes
Year: 2024
Country of origin: Turkey, Italy, Germany, Norway, Netherlands
Language: Turkish
Subtitles: English
A precise study of how women athletes navigate power, precarity, and the politics of the body, the film follows a young weightlifter determined to secure a lifelong state stipend awarded to international medalists. Hatice is a young, ambitious weightlifter living with her unemployed mother, determined to make it in the highly competitive environment and in
Dutch premiere of the 2026 Berlinale main prize winner: a powerful portrait of love, resistance, and intellectual repression in contemporary Turkey, following two artists forced into exile within their own country after being purged for their political beliefs. Aziz, a theater director and professor at the University of Ankara, receives the “yellow letter” informing him
After the screening: in conversation with Marco De Stefanis on the Armenian elections
