Black Night

Original title: Karanlik Gece
Genre: Thriller / Crime
Director: Özcan Alper
Country: Turkey
Year of production: 2022
Czas: 115 min

Awards and nominations:
2022 Ankara International Film Festival: Best Film, Best Director, Special Award of the Jury
2022 Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival: Best Film, Best Screenplay
2022 Bosphorus Film Festival: Best Director, Best Actor
 

“Black Night” is a suspenseful crime thriller telling the story of Ishak, a musician playing in night clubs in Anatolia. He needs to go back to his hometown after years of absence. The reason is saying goodbye to his dying mother. His long-time banishment was caused by a mysterious disappearance of a man that had happened eight years earlier. His friends, his dear girlfriend, and even officials were all involved in this tragic event. There’s been a conspiracy of silence in the local community ever since. The silence becomes a burden when it turns out that everyone has blood on their hands. Questions with no answers arise. In order to find his identity, Ishak must go back to the past and to the place he was born in.
 
Director Özcan Alper illustrates the loneliness of a contemporary artist placing his protagonist in a microcosm full of religious, social, and political contradictions. This is what this small Turkish town is like. Untamed mountain landscape of Anatolia plays an important role here. “Black Night” is a complex story of a battle between good and evil in which no one is entirely innocent.   
 
Author: Marcin Radomski

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Özcan Alper – a Turkish director and screenwriter. Known for films “Autumn”, “Tales from Kars”, and “The Festival of Troubadours”. He won multiple awards at international film festivals.