Bliss

Meryem, seventeen, is found unconscious by a lake in a village in eastern Anatolia. She has been raped. By the custom of the village what the family must now do is not in question, and the task falls to Cemal, a relative just back from military service, to whom it does not occur to question the order. The two of them set out for Istanbul. On the way they cross paths with İrfan, a professor who has abandoned his life and career and taken to the sea in a sailing boat. Abdullah Oğuz adapted it from Zülfü Livaneli's novel. Putting honour killings at the centre and refusing to treat the victim as guilty made it a film argued over in Turkey. Özgü Namal, Talat Bulut and Murat Han star.