251. Turkish director Semih Kaplanoglu’s seventh feature film “Baglilik Asli” (Commitment) (2019): An interesting study of the modern educated woman, motherhood, and family ties in a fast developing Turkish economy
The poster captures the essence of the film-- the child is the fulcrum of the tale, with the mother almost absent in the frame F ilm directors and screenplay writers Semih Kaplanoglu and Nuri Bilge Ceylan are the leading lights of Turkish cinema today. Their contributions have understandably resulted in Turkish films being considered among the very best in the world in recent decades. Unfortunately, Kaplanoglu’s previous film Grain made in 2017 has been totally neglected by most cineastes, even though the film won the top honor at the 2017 Tokyo film festival and was made in English on a subject that ought to interest a larger educated film-going global public. It possibly antagonized the powerful lobby of private sector involved with agricultural genetic engineering that effectively curtailed the film’s distribution and publicity worldwide, similar to the case of the Cannes-award winning European film Little Joe (2019). Grain was a departure for Kaplanoglu, not just for venturing i...
