Cold of Kalandar

Mustafa Kara's film is set in a mountain village in the Black Sea region. Mehmet lives there with his family, getting by on a few animals while spending years searching the mountains for a seam of ore. His family thinks the search is pointless; he will not give it up. At the point where his hope runs out, a bullfighting contest in Artvin appears in front of him and he loads every expectation onto it. The film moves through weather, mud, fog and silence more than through plot; its real subject is people, animals and the mountain sharing the same hardship. It showed at the Tokyo International Film Festival and was Turkey's submission for the 89th Academy Awards, though it was not nominated.