Boats Out of Watermelon Rinds

In the 1960s, in the village of Tepecik in Kütahya, Recep and Mehmet are friends. Recep works for a watermelon seller by day, and in the evenings the two meet in an abandoned barn and try to build their own film projector. There are no materials; they use whatever they can find in place of a lens, look for film stock, test light sources. At the same time Recep is in love with a girl in town, and she stands somewhere else entirely. Ahmet Uluçay's first feature rests on his own childhood; he had no film training, made short films in amateur conditions for years, and shot this in his own village. The narrative does not romanticise the dream; neither the machine nor the girl works out, and the film does not present that as a tragedy either. It won the special jury prize at the San Sebastián Film Festival in 2004 and best film at the Istanbul Film Festival. Uluçay died in 2009. Who it's for: Viewers who like Turkish independent cinema, films about cinema, and narratives of provincial life. Who it's not for: The pace is very slow and there is almost no plot. The ending resolves nothing.