THE PLAY

THE PLAY (OYUN), 2005
Turkey | HDD, Color, 70' | Turkish
Director: Pelin Esmer

When Pelin Esmer learned that nine women from the village of Arslanköylü in the Taurus Mountains were coming together to write and perform a theater play about their own lives, she went straight to Arslanköylü with hopes of making a film out of it. She thus met Behiye, Cennet, Fatma F., Fatma K., Nesime, Saniye, Ümmü, Ümmüye and Zeynep, and, together with these nine wonderful women, decided to bring on screen the transformation of the women of Arslanköylü who had turned to theater to ease the burden of their endless daily tasks and duties. Treading the thin line between documentary and fiction, the film chronicles the change that these women went through as they developed their play, which they called “The Outcry of Women” (Kadının Feryadı).