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Turkey

Hejar- Handan Ipekçi
Winner of the major film prizes in Turkey, this (initally) banned film is a moving, wonderfully performed story of an orphaned Kurdish child taken in by a retired judge in Istanbul. Rifat, 75, is getting ready to go and live in a retirement home. One day the police, looking for anti government Kurds, raid the house next door. Five-year-old Hejar, who has lost her family in a military raid, has been left at her uncle's house by her villagers. She escapes arrest by hiding and is discovered, injured and in shock, by Sakine, Rifat's housekeeper. Rifat, intolerant of anything Kurdish, wants to hand her over to the police, but relents when he discovers that Sakine, who had been his housekeeper for a decade and whom he trusts implicitly, is Kurdish as well. Hejar is a stubborn girl and she refuses any relationship with Rifat. Rifat cannot accept that she doesn't speak Turkish. They quarrel. But, in time, mutual loathing gives way to tolerance, understanding and then to fondness. Then a neighbor, jealous of the child's presence, informs the police... This year's Turkish submission for the Best Foreign Film Oscar. (120 mins.) Print courtesy of Menemsha Entertainment.
Filmography: Dad is in the Army (95).
Showtimes: 2/15, 4pm and 2/19, 6pm BW