For his feature debut, Turkish filmmaker Nehir Tuna climbs back into his personal space to explore friendship, isolation and the diverging philosophical and religious beliefs of the mid-90s Turkey with the autobiographical Dormitory (aka Yurt). Exploring the rather colorless existence Ahmet, a young teen who is slightly naive but nonetheless rebellious in his pursuit for perspective in a world filled with dichotomy and contradictions. In this portrait, Tuna gazes inquisitively at the way division tends to perpetuate further divisions, while making a concerted effort to extinguish individual spirit.
After a decade plus filmography of working in the short film form, Nehir Tuna had the opportunity to workshop the screenplay for Dormitory at the 2019 Sundance Screenwriters Lab and re-teamed with players on his previous works for a feature that was selected for the 2023 Venice Film Festival’s Orizzonti section. I had the opportunity to sit down with the filmmaker during the festival, where we discussed working in different colors and the aspect ratio, the dynamics of the different type of relationships we find here and the multi-dimensionality of the splintered character set.
Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).
