Cannes 2011: Once Upon a Time In Anatolia by Nuri Bilge Ceylan

Does this title – Bir Zamanlar Anadolu’da means anything to you? Guess not, but I’m sure you already know that Once Upon a Time In Anatolia is one of the movies scheduled to premiere In Competition at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

So, it’s the perfect time for us to have a little chat about the project that comes from Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan, and that will tell us the story of a doctor living on the Anatolia steppe.

Here’s a little description of this one: “Life in a small town is akin to journeying in the middle of the steppes: the sense that “something new and different” will spring up behind every hill, but always unerringly similar, tapering, vanishing or lingering monotonous roads.

Ceylan’s most expansive production yet, the 150-minute film covers a night in the lives of a doctor and a prosecutor on the harsh terrain of the Anatolia steppe.”

Once Upon A Time In Anatolia stars Muhammet Uzuner as Doctor Cemal, Yılmaz Erdoğan as Commissar Naci, Taner Birsel as Prosecutor Nusret, Ahmet Mümtaz Taylan as Driver Arab Ali, Fırat Tanış as Suspect Kenan, Ercan Kesal as Mukhtar, Erol Eraslan as Murder Victim Yaşar, Uğur Arslanoğlu as Courthouse Driver Tevfik, Murat Kılıç as Police Officer İzzet, Şafak Karali as Courthouse Clerk Abidin, Emre Şen as Sergeant Önder, Burhan Yıldız as Suspect Ramazan and Nihan Okutucu as Yaşar’s wife Gülnaz.