Alone in New York, Yakup clings to the hope of reunion. As the wait drags on, his grip on time and reality begins to slip, pulling him deeper into a fragile and unsettling inner world.
Drawing from lived experiences of exile and displacement, the film unfolds as an intimate psychological drama of separation, resilience, and the fragile terrain of the human mind.
Directed by Nadir Sarıbacak and Samy Pioneer
100 minutes. In English and Turkish.
Nobody was calling. So we wrote a story.
That’s how Nadir Sarıbacak tells it: he phoned Ayhan Hulagu and said they should write something, because nobody was calling. When the film was finished we didn’t wait for a distributor either. We started with one night in Washington, D.C., audiences began voting for their own cities, and we went where the votes were. That came to 32 nights across the US and Canada since April, and more than half of them sold out.
Washington, D.C.HoustonNew JerseyDallasOrange CountyOttawaTorontoRaleighSeattleChicagoPalo AltoAtlantaLas VegasLos AngelesAustinBrooklynJacksonvilleNorth HavenMinneapolisOrlandoLong IslandBoulder
After the film, they took the stage with us.
Each of them moderated a Q&A on the US and Canada run.
David EhrlichIndieWire
Brooklyn
Inkoo KangThe New Yorker
Palo Alto
Mick LaSalleCritic and author
Palo Alto
Merawi GerimaFilmmaker, Residue
Washington, D.C.
Alonso DuraldeThe Film Verdict
Los Angeles
Stephen FarberPast president, LA Film Critics Association
Orange County
Ana SouzaSundance programmer
Orange County
Stephen WhittyCritic and author
New Jersey
Doug HarrisHouston Film Critics Society
Houston
Farran Smith NehmeFilm critic and novelist
New Jersey
Felicia FeasterJournalist and film critic
Atlanta
Jason GorberFilm critic
Toronto and Ottawa
Also critic Dr. Paul Salfen, filmmaker Saleem Reshamwala, actor Bill Timoney, and scholars Dr. Philip Clayton and Dr. Jeannette Okur.
