19th October 2018
2015, Turkish/French (subtitles), 97 mins
Cannes festival winner with a female director. A Turkish household’s harsh reaction to the reports of illicit play by five spirited sisters leads them to fight for their freedoms.
Beautifully shot, with stunning performances by its young cast, the Oscar-nominated MUSTANG is both a rousing tale of spirited youth and a powerful, moving and timely work of engaging social cinema.
In a village in northern Turkey, five sisters innocently celebrate the end of the school year at the beach with some boys. The ‘immorality’ of their play sets off a scandal that has unexpected consequences. The family home is progressively transformed into a prison; homemaking replaces school and marriages start being arranged. The sisters who share a common passion for freedom, find ways of getting around the constraints imposed on them.
Mustang won the prize for Best European film at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival and four César awards in France. Turkish director Deniz Gamze Ergüven’s debut feature is a remarkable achievement, an accomplished study of what it means to be young and female in Turkey. Unfortunately, she finds it hard to imagine working in Turkey again. “I detested the response [to Mustang] in Turkey, and so I withdrew from it.”