Festivals-a-Go-Go: Feb. 3-5 + R.I.P. The Cinesphere?

Before I roll off a quick tally of interesting things screening at interesting venues this weekend (bobby-pins, please), here’s a video released by NASA this week showing the dark side of the moon, proving Pink Floyd does not have a secret base in crater XB-14.

Yilmaz Güney, Part II: The Poor Ones (1975)

Not a happy dude. At all.

The screening of The Poor Ones / Zavallilar [M] (1975) marks the approximate midpoint in the TIFF Bell Lightbox’s current retrospective of Turkish actor, writer, director Yilmaz Guney, and although not as powerful as his Cannes-winning Yol [M] (1982), Poor Ones has its moments of sharp social commentary. It’s also one  mother of a bleak film, yet Guney clearly took a popular genre from one country and created his own hybrid, infusing it with the so-called mirror images of Turkish society as filtered through his sensibilities.

A production affected by a major incident – Guney’s arrest and incarceration – the film features one of his last major roles in front of the camera before he switched to writing and directing, most of those efforts done from behind bars.

Yilmaz Güney, Part I - Yol (1982)

No, that isn't Sean Connery carrying Isabella Rossellini.

Spanning January and February, the TIFF Bell Lightbox is running a retrospective of Turkish director Yilmaz Güney, best known for his international and Cannes-winning hit Yol (1982).

The retro, The Way Home: The Films of Turkish Master Yilmaz Güney,  consists of 8 films: Hope, The Herd, Yol, The Poor Ones, Elegy, Bride of the Earth, The Hungry Wolves, and The Friend, and with the exception of a French Region 2 DVD release of Yol, apparently none of his films are available on video in North America (and probably the same in Europe, Yol excepted).