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Films 2015 - Turkey - Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (Bir Zamanlar Anadolu'da)
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (Bir Zamanlar Anadolu'da)
Director: Nuri Bilge Ceylan, 2011
Language: Turkish
157 minutes – Turkey
SYNOPSIS: In the dead of night, a group of men, including a police commissioner, a prosecutor, a doctor and a murder suspect, drive through the Anatolian countryside, the serpentine roads and rolling hills lit only by the headlights of their cars. They are searching for a corpse, the victim of a brutal murder. The suspect, who claims he was drunk, can't remember where he buried the body. As night wears on, details about the murder emerge and the investigators own secrets come to light. In the Anatolian steppes nothing is what it seems; and when the body is found, the real questions begin.
Wikipedia’s description: A drama co-written and directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan and based on the true experience of one of the film's writers, telling the story of a group of men who search for a dead body on the Anatolian steppe.
The film was a co-winner of the Grand Prix at the 2011 Cannes Festival, and was Turkey's official submission for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, but did not make the shortlist.
Sight & Sound film magazine listed it at #8 on its list of best films of 2012. Stephen Holden, film critic for The New York Times, called Once Upon a Time in Anatolia the sixth best movie of 2012 and "a searching reflection on the elusiveness of truth."