Anatolian Leopard

Original title: Anadolu Leopari
Genre: Drama / Crime
Director: Emre Kayiş
Country: Turkey, Germany, Poland, Denmark
Year of production: 2021
Czas: 108 min

Awards and nominations:
2022 KineNova International Film Festival: Best Film of the International Competition
2021 Toronto International Film Festival: FIPRESCI Prize – Discovery section
2021 Ankara International Film Festival: Best Film, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Cinematography
2021 Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival: Best First Film, Best Art Direction
2021 Antakya Film Festival: Best Film, Best Screenplay

“Your story is too real for anyone to believe it” – these are the words we hear in a crucial moment of “Anatolian Leopard”, a tale of the price of progress and of how to deal with changes happening around us. Fikret (played by Ugur Polat) has committed his life to working in one place. When the zoo becomes a target of greedy foreign investors willing to shut it down and build an amusement park on its premises, this may mean the end of Fikret’s life as he knows it.
A FIPRESCI-awarded film shows how one night may change everything. While everyone is celebrating the New Year, Fikret is alone in the zoo. He talks to the eponymous Anatolian leopard, the most precious specimen in the zoo, called “a nation’s pride” due to its status of an endangered species. When our character realises that there’s something wrong with the animal, he must make a serious decision. This is the beginning of a story of what happens when you hide something from a merciless government.
“Anatolian Leopard” is first and foremost a tale of a need to be close to someone. The film’s slow rhythm allows the director to show how a romantic unable to accept a changing reality may create a connection with someone. The endangered species is a metaphor of people doomed to be alone, people like Fikret, a withdrawn and introverted man.

Author: Michał Kaczoń

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Emre Kayiş – a debutant born in Turkey; a graduate of Ankara University and London Film School. A director, screenwriter, and cinematographer who gained recognition thanks to a criminal drama “Alef” which was awarded at New York Festival. A finalist of Berlinale Talents. “Anatolian Leopard” is his feature directorial debut.