Bank Holiday Monday Night Cinema

About Dry Grasses

(Kuru Otlar Üstüne)

Samet (Deniz Celiloglu) is a teacher assigned to a remote village in Turkey’s Anatolia region. He’s set up on a date with Nuray (Merve Dizdar), a fellow teacher and survivor of a terrorist bombing. Initially, the narcissistic Samet has little interest in a relationship with Nuray. However, he grows frustrated and jealous when his roommate Kenan (Musab Ekici) immediately hits it off with Nuray. Meanwhile, his teaching job is imperilled when he’s accused of inappropriate behaviour by two female pupils.

Acclaimed director Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s (Winter Sleep) latest is an absorbing, unpredictable film that gradually reveals its characters’ depths through loaded conversations, subtle gestures and acts of casual malice. Set against snowy Anatolian landscapes, this is a blackly comic study of contemporary social disconnection and frustration.