Turkish Film Fest empowers women

The fifth annual Turkish Film Festival, in alignment with this year’s theme “Women in Turkish Cinema,” broke misconceptions about Turkish women through the power of film in “Innowhereland,” which played Saturday.

The film centers around the story of Sukran, a woman in her 40s, and her desperate search for her missing son Veysel.

Sukran follows clues and her own intuition from Istanbul to Mardin, a small town in southeastern Turkey, to find her son. Mardin represents the concept of being in a strange land and being forced to adapt to strange customs.  

The cinematography of the film captures both Sukran’s desperate plight and the emptiness of feeling like she is in the middle of nowhere by using color schemes of the desert during her journey in Mardin.

The dramatic irony of the film lies in the fact that all along, the audience knows her son is dead. In the end, Sukran continues to wait for her son, holding out hope that he will turn up someday.

“The film shows the power of a mother’s love and how it can overrule any belief in a reality, no matter how blatant it appears,” freshman Farrell Paules said. “Any woman would probably do what Sukran did.”

Graduate student Kako Koshino also said the film captured an issue that was not particularly exclusive to Turkish women, but was realistic.

“A mother’s love for her son is found all throughout the world,” she said. “It is interesting that the main character just happened to be a Turkish woman.”

The political themes of the film rested on the reality of Sukran’s situation once she got to Mardin. In Mardin, the only other female character to appear was an older woman who prophesied that her son was waiting behind a door.   

Graduate student and presenter for the festival Sinem Siyahhan said the world of Mardin, which seemed to be dominated by men, was set up purposely and that it connected with the reality of women’s situations.  

“It was a good way to show the reality of how differently women are treated in Mardin, coming from Istanbul, which is a very liberal place,” she said. “Women in the southeastern region, which tends to be more strictly controlled by government and the military, are only allowed in public spaces at particular times.”

Siyahhan said if Sukran was oppressed in any way, it was likely through her delusions of her son’s state of living.

A female character in the early part of the film sympathizes with Sukran’s maternal struggle.

“Humankind is such a low creature,” she says. “It gets used to anything. You’ll wait in vain and nothing will come of it.”

Graduate student Sobhi Mohanty said the presentation of the film probably broke stereotypes of Turkish women for those who have never been exposed to Turkish culture.

The festival, which is free and open to the public, continues at 8 p.m. from Thursday to Saturday in Ballantine Hall room 109, with screenings including English subtitles.

“Turkish women are not just these oppressed beings that people think of,” Mohanty said. “For the most part, they are very progressive and modern just like everyone else.”