OYUN

In the mountain village of Arslankoy, in southern Turkey, nine audacious women seek to escape from the trials and tribulations of their harsh lives by developing and staging a theatre play based on their personal experiences. By day these women toil in the fields and construction sites. They suffer at the hands of their feckless and sometimes violent husbands. The cathartic process of creating their play, entitled "The Outcry of Women!" allows the women to release the tensions that have built up in them over the years.

The women's theatre group meets in the village school, an unusual environment for them since many of them have been denied an education. There they cautiously begin to tell their stories to each other, becoming more and more confident as the play develops. The final performance of the play, on a makeshift stage in the presence of the women's husbands and families, is a spirited, vigorous, and surprisingly humorous call for change. Pelin Esmer captures the women's remarkable achievement in a sensitive manner, which allows their dignity and strength to shine through.

"I wanted to shoot a fiction-like documentary rather than a documentary-like fiction film, without trying to be invisible but quietly integrating myself in their lives at that very village, at that very moment and with the very people living through this happening." Pelin Esmer

"Oyun was this year's most admired Turkish movie by foreign critics (...) Despite the fact that it was not in the competitive section, at some point the FIPRESCI jury considered giving it a special award." Istanbul International Film Festival

Awards: Best Documentary, Trieste 2006; Audience Award, Navarra 2006; Special Award of the Jury, Nürnberg 2006; Best Documentary, Créteil International Women's Film Festival 2006

http://www.oyuntheplay.com/