CYCLE

CYCLE, 2012

Turkey | DCP, Color, 75’ | Turkish

Cast:Ramazan Bayar, Ali Özel, Mustafa Çelikli, Nadi Güler, Çala Köseoğullar

In Hasanpaşa, a village in the province of Burdur, every year the village holds a shepherding contest in which, according to tradition, shepherds go into a puddle one by one with their herds and cross the puddle quickly without stopping, with their herds following them. The fleeces of the sheep are dyed with a powder dye obtained by sifting fragments of a red rock. But it has become harder to get hold of the red rock because of the marble quarry opened near the village.

“For quite a long time Derviş Zaim has been seeking to contribute something from these lands to cinema, which is a western invention and became universal over time. In order to make this contribution, he establishes a bond with ‘tradition.’... In Cycle, he focuses on the relationship between nature and humans through a shepherding contest that has been held for centuries and has even found its way into books. At the same time, the film exposes humankind’s ambition to dominate nature and the consequences of capital’s vision of ‘nature’ as money. Excavators ripping the virgin soil, deer killed for pleasure, the needless ambition for success...”- Olkan Özyurt