5:00 p.m.	Once Upon a Time in Anatolia Nuri Bilge Ceylan (Turkey/Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2011)

“Both beautiful and beautifully observed, with a delicate touch and flashes of humor and horror.”—Manohla Dargis, New York Times

(Bir zamanlar Anadolu'da). A richly detailed investigation into both a murder and the human condition, Once Upon a Time in Anatolia received the Grand Prix at the Cannes film festival in 2011. Acclaimed director Nuri Bilge Ceylan (Clouds of May, Distant) takes us under the dark of night into the vast Turkish landscape, where a routine police procedural unspools as a mystery. The slow, seemingly aimless pace of the narrative is dotted with wry humor and clues. “Like a game of chess, the grand design of this subtle and disturbing film comes increasingly into focus as events progress. Things are not always as they appear to be, and in Kafka-like gestures, people, emotions and events are developed in different and deeper ways. . . . What is truth and how we find it are some of the questions Ceylan raises in this superior exploration of a crime and its investigation” (Piers Handling, Toronto International Film Festival).


• Written by Ercan Kesal, Ebru Ceylan, Nuri Bilge Ceylan. Photographed by Gokhan Tiryaki. With Muhammet Uzuner, Yilmaz Erdogan, Taner Birsel, Ahmet Mumtaz Taylan. (157 minutes, In Turkish with English subtitles, Color, ‘Scope, 35mm, From The Cinema Guild)