Winter Sleep

Winner of the Palme d'Or in 2014. One of the best contemporary Turkish films from the director of "Once Upon a Time in Anatolia" and "Distant," inspired by the works of Russian classics Chekhov, Tolstoy, and Dostoevsky.

The "Othello" hotel in Anatolia is managed by the imposing, gray-haired Aydın, a former theater actor whose glory days are long gone. He lives there with his beautiful wife, who is involved in charity work, and his sister, who still longs for her recently divorced husband. An unprecedented snowstorm cuts off the hotel from civilization, turning it into both a refuge for the characters and a place of inner turmoil.

"The main mystery of 'Winter Sleep' is how Nuri Bilge Ceylan manages to maintain tension while depicting a story in which nothing happens. [...] Every single inhabitant of this place invents (each to the extent of their abilities) justifications for themselves, as long as they do not break out of their state of immobility. Everyone lives by the principle: 'Today I made a lot of plans to do nothing.' And they engage in endless verbal wars. But in the accumulation of words in the absence of a common language, any attempts to resolve the conflict drown. The fault lies with the very structure of the world of 'Winter Sleep,' where loneliness is so impenetrable that it consumes everything." Anastasia Senchenko, "Seans" magazine