Whistle If You Come Back

Orhan Oğuz's film, released in 1993, tells the story of two outcasts in the back streets of Beyoğlu in Istanbul. Cihan, a dwarf working in a bar, and Selim, a transvestite doing sex work, are both condemned to belong to the night; a strange encounter binds them together and the film watches that friendship form. It is one of the first Turkish films to describe marginal characters without pity and without making them comic material. Oğuz served as his own cinematographer and recorded Beyoğlu with an almost documentary closeness; the Istanbul night life of the early 1990s now carries separate archival value. The actor playing the dwarf was found through a newspaper advertisement. The film's greatest strength is that the two characters do not pity each other: their solidarity is built between equals. Who it's for: viewers interested in the independent vein of 1990s Turkish cinema and in stories of exclusion. Who it's not for: anyone avoiding content about violence and sex work, or who will find the period's terminology around transgender lives dated.