Four 40-something friends are haunted by the violent past of a divided Cyprus. Temel wants desperately to speak about the crimes of vengeance he committed as a teenager. He would like to confess about the bodies buried in the muddy patch of a dried-up salt lake, but fear holds him back from even going there. Ali participates in Temel's UN projects aimed at defusing tension between Cyprus' Greek and Turkish communities....
Cinematography
The salt lake mud — cracked earth as open wound.
Acting
Taner Birsel's Temel: grief held so tight it chokes.
Direction
Zaim makes Cyprus itself the suffocating fifth character.
Director
Derviş Zaim
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Zaim filmed in the actual UN buffer zone in Nicosia, using real abandoned locations that embody Cyprus' frozen conflict.
The salt lake's seasonal flooding mirrors the film's structure — what gets buried resurfaces, what dries cracks open.
TR
