Film Screening:

Inside (Yeralti)
(Zeki Demirkubuz, 2012, 107 min, Turkey, in Turkish w/ English subtitles, Color, Blu-Ray)

-- Introduced by Didem Havlioglu (Slavic & Eurasian Studies); Q&A to follow

Muharrem pressgangs his old friends into inviting him to dinner, no matter that he hates and is hated by them. The dinner starts off with a few harmless gibes and trivial shows of bravado; but as time wears on and heads become fuddled, the conversation progresses steadily into the inglorious past. Old grievances come tumbling out into an ugly showdown. As the night becomes charged with tears, anger and regret, the outrage spills onto the dark streets, into sleazy hotel rooms Although they're in league and he's on his own, Muharrem has made up his mind. Either the filth is cleaned up that night or he dies. Otherwise he'll never be rid of this sense of shame.

Through his character inspired by Dostoevsky's "Notes from Underground", Zeki Demirkubuz examines the existential problems of the individual.

"An auteur with a genuine spiritual sensitivity ... one of the world's few convincing existential filmmakers." -- Peter Keough, Boston Phoenix

Cost: Free and open to the public

Sponsors: The Global Education Office for Undergraduates (GEO) / Duke in Istanbul, the Duke University Middle East Studies Center (DUMESC), AMES Presents, and the Program in the Arts of the Moving Image (AMI).