Macit Koper Movies

Fans of Turkish auteur Omere Kavur will be most likely to understand and appreciate this arty and highly symbolic account of Kerem, a traveling clock repairman, and the dark, enigmatic Esra, the owner of the clocktower Kerem is hired to repair. Esra seems to be in permanent mourning over the death of her daughter (oddly, the clock stopped on that very day); she spends her days sitting at a weaving loom and grieving. One day, she risks the wrath of her husband, a hunter, and seduces Kerem. Shortly after sleeping with Esra, Kerem witnesses a lakeside murder. Later the corpse disappears. When Kerem discovers that another clock repairman preceded him and also slept with Esra, he wonders if his life is in jeopardy. This film won the two top awards at the 1997 Istanbul Film Festival, "Best Picture" and "Best Direction." ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Having heard that if he can build a house in one night on unclaimed land, there is a law that will permit him to keep it, Kerem (Sven Wolter) feverishly mortars a house together in the dead of night in a Turkish coastal village. It's too bad, really. The land he has built on is not unclaimed, as he thought, but belongs to the government. His new home is soon torn down. Undaunted, he tries again, this time with tacit encouragement from the villagers, who find his antics fascinating. They are even more favorably disposed to the project because he has gone out of his way to be helpful to his neighbors in every way he can think of. Despite this, he has incurred the wrath of one mean-spirited old man, who resents it that he left aside repairing something for him in order to save a girl from drowning. Into this nearly idyllic scene comes Kerem's hard-bitten wife, who grudges his help to his neighbors and is constantly upsetting the local people. After a while, she takes off for Germany, leaving their children behind. Just when Kerem has begun to recover from this (and from the drinking bout it induced), the awful shrew returns with an infant child. She claims it is his, but the villagers tell another story. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Ali is a screenwriter in search of a filming location which will spur his imagination. He is traveling around the Turkish and Greek countryside looking for a site with his fellow scriptwriter Yavuz, who apparently does most of the duo's negotiating with movie-business types. Eventually, they find a spot on the coast of Greece, an abandoned village. This sets Ali's creative juices going, and he moves into the village's abandoned church and begins writing at an amazing rate, while he sends Yavuz off in search of producers and a director for the film they see taking shape. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Serap (Mujde Ar) is an aspiring actress who lands a job in a shampoo commercial in this comedy. With a good job at the local theater, a nice apartment, and a wealthy boyfriend, Serap is elated when she gets her big break in the commercial. The extras include a dull husband and two colorless children who live in a drab apartment. While filming the scene, the camera disappears, and Serap enters the world of the trapped housewife she is portraying. When neither her boyfriend nor her friends recognize her, Serap returns to her so-called family and resigns herself to her fate when fantasy becomes reality. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

This is the fourth in a series of Danish films based on a story by the children's novelist Ole Lund Kirkegaard, and unlike its predecessors, it is geared solely to the young tots. As the tale of the Turkish boy Hodja (David Bertelsen) and his magic, flying carpet takes off, Hodja has just been awarded the carpet by the village elders and he shares his rides with his girlfriend Emerald (Zuhal Ozdemir). The two are unceasingly chased by the nefarious Rat (Lars Junggreen), who is anxious to pirate the carpet as a way to curry the Sultan's favor. But the last laugh will be Hodja's -- the carpet does not run on high octane fuel, just the belief in magic by those who climb aboard. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi