Shadows and Faces

Cyprus, 1963. A shadow-puppet master and his daughter Rusen return to the island; when the troubles begin the father disappears and the daughter goes looking for him. That search passes through the days in which the Greek and Turkish communities came apart. The subject is not a history lesson but who is holding an image. On the Karagoz screen, figures do not move by themselves; a hand behind them holds them. The film applies the same idea to political events and keeps asking who is the shadow and who is the hand. The form takes shadow theatre directly into the narrative; scenes on the screen and scenes in the world interleave, and the light source itself keeps entering the frame. The production is the third and final part of Dervis Zaim's cycle on traditional arts, after miniature painting and calligraphy. Zaim was born in Cyprus, so the period is his own geography. The film was made as a Turkish and Cypriot co-production and actors from both communities worked together. Osman Alkas plays the father, Hazar Erguclu his daughter, and Popi Avraam the woman on the Greek side. Who it is for: viewers who like traditional arts carried into cinema and films that look at Cyprus from both sides. Who it is not for: anyone expecting the political chronology of the period; the film does not order the events, it moves among them.