BACK STAGE

If Orhan Pamuk, the great Turkish writer of Snow, Istanbul and My Name is Red, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature 2006, was to write a script for a film, it might be very much like this one. Uzak is a slow and beautiful film that captures the nuances in the lives of two Istanbul cousins. Each, in his own way, is drifting and alienated from themselves and their world.

Uzak is a film that belongs to Nuri Bilge Ceylan. He wrote the script and though there are no credits to Orhan Pamuk, his name is given to one of the characters fleeing to Canada. Is this a fleeting tribute to the great author? Perhaps, but then Nuri Bilge Ceylan also directed his film, served as his own cinematographer and produced it, after editing it with Ayhan Ergrsel. The non-professional cast all are his friends and family. Together they have achieved a stunning film that in 2003 was recognised at Cannes by winning the Grand Prix.