As we reflect on the year’s best films, it’s also worth remembering those that made a strong impact on the festival circuit but never secured a theatrical release—among them a remarkable debut that was ultimately chosen as Turkey’s official Oscar submission for the upcoming Oscars (it did not make the shortlist). Murat Fıratoğlu’s One of Those Days When Hemme Dies is a restrained yet emotionally charged film that explores the quiet weight of everyday existence under social and economic pressure. Set in a marginal, rural environment, One of Those Days When Hemme Dies follows an ordinary man through a single, unremarkable day that gradually reveals deeper tensions beneath its surface simplicity. Through repetition, silence, and observation, this mundane text is a reflection on dignity, frustration, and endurance. When a simple conversation can detract from the original intent to cause harm we find a tale about alienation, labor, masculinity, and the invisibility of suffering.
A fine piece of slow cinema and social realism, Fıratoğlu wrote, directed, edited and took the lead in the film here – and the picture was reward at its world premiere screening in the Orizzonti section back in 2024 (see video from the premiere). It is a couple of months later in Marrakech where I got to sit down with the filmmaker. I was surprised to learn that he actually worked as a photographer and practiced law – so among the questions I asked Murat Fıratoğlu about the choices he made when thinking about how to act the part, and the added weight of each sequence – peeling back the root of revenge. Note the subtitles are in the works.
