Wishlist Films

Aydin, a former actor, runs a small hotel in central Anatolia with his young wife Nihal with whom he has a stormy relationship and his sister Necla who is suffering from her recent divorce. In winter as the snow begins to fall, the hotel turns into a shelter but also an inescapable place that fuels their animosities...

Nesrin, an urban upper-middle class woman, goes back to her parents' old village in Anatolia to finish a novel and live out her dream of being a writer. When her conservative mother turns up uninvited and refuses to leave, Nesrin's writing stalls and her fantasies of village life turn bitter. The two woman are forced to confront the darker corners of each other's inner worlds.

When some people from the other side of the mountain invade the territory of a farming family, the family head tries to unite the family and fight back. But then problems within the family start to appear as well.

A woman's life is derailed en route to a potentially lucrative summer job. When her car breaks down, and her dog is taken to the pound, the thin fabric of her financial situation comes apart, and she is led through a series of increasingly dire economic decisions.

Mertkan has a simple life in Istanbul: 'working' as an office-boy in his dad's construction company, hanging out with his male friends in malls and discos, cruising with his dad's 4-wheel drive at night. There is no urgency for him to find a meaning to this emptiness. When he meets Gul, a Kurdish girl from Eastern Turkey, putting herself through university by working as a waitress, Mertkan has a chance to change the futility of his life. But his father opposes his connection with 'those people who only want to divide our country' and reminds Mertkan that 'we are all Turkish and we are all Muslims'. Insidiously Mertkan bows to the social values of the 'Majority' when faced with a choice, and becomes the 'proper man' his dad wanted him to be.

A stagnant and gloomy village in the 1980s. Reyhan, Nurhan, and Havva, three sisters were sent to town as 'besleme' (foster child and maid). Since they fail their foster parents for different reasons, they are sent back to their father's house in their poor village. Deprived of their dreams of a better life, they try to hold on to each other.

11-year-old Aslan saves an injured Kangal sheepdog named Sivas, a fighting dog that was left for dead after losing a brutal match. He then tries to use Sivas to impress his classmates, in particular the girl he likes, and even sets up an amateur fight with another boy's dog.

Yusuf is a Turkish political activist whose work with a group of revolutionaries earned him a long stay in prison. He is released after ten years when he's diagnosed with a severe respiratory illness, and returns home to the small town near the Black Sea where his mother lives. His homecoming gets off to a rocky start when his dog doesn't recognize him, and while his mother is happy he's back, she can't offer him the emotional and spiritual comfort he needs after a decade in jail. Mikail, a close friend of his from their school days, decides his old pal needs a vacation, and they head to Rize, a resort town by the sea shore. Mikail rents a couple of rooms at a cheap motel and rounds up a pair of hookers to entertain them, Eka and Maria. Yusuf isn't in the mood for cheap sex and refuses to spend the night with Eka, but as they get to know one another, the two begin to bond and Yusuf finds a kindred spirit in a woman whose life has taken her places she never wanted to go.

"Umut" is the story of an illiterate man and his family, whose existence depends on his income as a horse cab driver. When one of his horses is killed by an automobile, and when it is clear that neither justice nor charity will prevail, the man, played by Güney, begins a slow slide into despair. On the advice of a local holy man, and fuelled by an indefatigable optimism, he sets out into the desert in quest of a mythical lost treasure, slipping further and further into that final, ineluctable moment where hope itself becomes the last terrible delusion.

A urban Turkish teacher is transferred for political reasons to a backward Kurdish village in the mountains near the Iranian border. He is welcomed with distrust, but during that harsh year the mutual cultural misunderstandings fade away.

On the lonely roads of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, two men forge an improbable friendship that will change both of their lives forever. Solo is a Senegalese cab driver working to provide a better life for his young family. William is a tough Southern good ol' boy with a lifetime of regrets. One man's American dream is just beginning, while the other's is quickly winding down. But despite their differences, both men soon realize they need each other more than either is willing to admit. Through this unlikely but unforgettable friendship, GOODBYE SOLO deftly explores the passing of a generation as well as the rapidly changing face of America.

Mihram is a small time Turkish black marketeer who gambles and drinks too much. Something that bothers both him and his wife, Elif. He wants to better his life and when he hears about the enormous amount of cell phones being sold, he wants to enter that market. For this, he needs money and when the local doctor asks him to get medicine from Azerbaijan for the sick children, he sets out to get the medicine, aided by his crotchety elderly uncle Fazil.

Nejat seems disapproving about his widower father Ali's choice of prostitute Yeter for a live-in girlfriend. But he grows fond of her when he discovers she sends money home to Turkey for her daughter's university studies. Yeter's sudden death distances father and son. Nejat travels to Istanbul to search for Yeter's daughter Ayten. Political activist Ayten has fled the Turkish police and is already in Germany. She is befriended by a young woman, Lotte, who invites rebellious Ayten to stay in her home, a gesture not particularly pleasing to her conservative mother Susanne. When Ayten is arrested and her asylum plea is denied, she is deported and imprisoned in Turkey. Lotte travels to Turkey,where she gets caught up in the seemingly hopeless situation of freeing Ayten.

Near the Bosporus, Eyüp and Hacer live in a modest flat with their son Ismail, in his twenties, who's doing poorly in his studies. Few words pass between them, and a past family tragedy brings sorrow daily. On a rainy night, Eyüp's boss Servet, a wealthy businessman who's entering politics, hits a pedestrian on a lonely road. He drives off and offers money to Eyüp if Eyüp will take the fall - probably a six-month sentence. Eyüp agrees, and while he's in prison, Ismail wants his mother to ask Servet for enough money to buy a car. Servet, in turn, desires Hacer. How can this play out?

Yazi Tura (Toss Up) is the film of two stories taking place in 1999. Stories of two young men... One is "Ridvan the Devil", a young football player from Central Anatolia, Cappadocia / Goreme, and the "Cevher the Ghost", a young man who is living with his father in Istanbul. Both went to the army together, and fought in the Eastern Anatolia. Both had dreams and expectations for their civil lives back home. After their military service Ridvan goes back to his village with his right leg missing, the leg that he would score goals with, due to a mine explotion. Neither his fiancée nor his friends treat him the way before. What Ridvan has been through during the war actually brings him down with time. In the same mine explosion Cevher also lost his hearing ability of his right ear, but he is going to go through a greater change after he rescues his father from the wreckage of the Marmara Earthquake.

Upon the Arabic Spring a young woman rents a room in the neighbor's brothel where she can dream about her sexual desires and identity.

A European family who plan on escaping to Australia, seem caught up in their daily routine, only troubled by minor incidents. However, behind their apparent calm and repetitive existence, they are actually planning something sinister.

Mahmut, a 40 year old independent photographer, is a "village boy made good" at least professionally in the big city - Istanbul in this case. After his wife leaves him, he falls into an existential crisis. Then comes his cousin Yusuf, who left his native village after a local factory closed down, effectively unemploying over half the local men. He looks to Istanbul for salvation: a job on board a ship sailing abroad, at once exciting and crucial to supporting his family in the desperately poor village. The distance between the two men is apparent at once, and becomes increasingly pronounced. Whereas Mahmut is adusted to big city life and suffers from many of its neuroses, Yusuf is a lonely, excentric country worker with annoying nervous and hygienic habits, and a sick mother back home he must somehow support. This intimate drama was filmed in the director's apartment in Istanbul, using all his furniture, appliances, rooms, car and so on as the film's props. The actor playing Yusuf is actually the director's real-life cousin, and the actor playing Mahmut is an actual friend, a non-professional actor.