THE PLAY

DOCUMENTARY, Turkey, 2006, 70 minutes; in Turkish with English subtitles

Director/Producer/Cinematographer/Editor: Pelin Esmer
Co-Producer: Nida Karabol Akdeniz

While working in the fields outside her remote Turkish village, a forceful peasant woman decides that her story and those of her women friends are the stuff of theater. She enlists the high school principal to fashion the work, then cajoles her friends into telling their stories (often for the first time), and performing the resulting play for the village.

The power of theater to inform and change lives is vividly demonstrated in this moving and life-affirming documentary. As the work proceeds, the women -- and their men -- begin to feel differently about themselves and each other. The women are finding their voices. Their tenacity and humor is affecting, and the village will never be the same.

· 2006 Tribeca Film Festival: Best New Documentary Filmmaker
· 2006 Trieste International Film Festival: Best Documentary
· 2006 Navarra Punto de Vista Film Festival: Audience Award
· 2006 Vitoria New European Film Festival: Human Rights Award

Pelin Esmer was born in Istanbul in 1972. She majored in sociology at Bogazici University. She was assistant director on many Turkish and foreign films and commercials. THE PLAY is Esmer’s first feature-length work – to date it has received the Best New Documentary Filmmaker award at Tribeca, plus awards at Trieste, Creteil and other festivals.