Nestled away in wintry East Anatolia, public-school art teacher Samet (Deniz Celiloğlu) yearns to leave the sleepy village for cosmopolitan Istanbul. Further disenchanted when he and Kenan (Musab Ekici), a colleague, come under public scrutiny, Samet fears circumstances will keep him in Anatolia and his dreams of a new life permanently out of reach. A silver lining is a budding relationship with Nuray (Merve Dizdar), a fellow teacher and firebrand who develops connections with both Samet and Kenan, forcing Samet to confront what he can't readily accept. Renowned for his nuanced, visually ravishing imagery, award-winning director Nuri Bilge Ceylan (Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, Winter Sleep) capstones the film with one of his greatest sequences, a dazzling meta-cinematic climax featuring an entrancing performance from Dizdar, who took home Best Actress at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival.

"Between’s Ceylan’s eye for faces, landscapes and spatial dynamics, and the first-rate work of cinematographers Kürsat Üresin and Çevahir Sahin, “About Dry Grasses” fills every widescreen frame with life." (Chicago Tribune)

"“About Dry Grasses” may be unhurried, with languid steppe-by-steppe pacing and long, luxuriant, exquisitely sculpted conversations, but it is also nimble, alert, and alive in ways that seem to have taken Ceylan himself by surprise." (The New Yorker)

Sunday, March 24
Doors 2:15 pm | Film 2:45 pm *Start time subject to change. Please arrive on time.

Please note this movie screens in Turkish with English subtitles.

ABOUT DRY GRASSES (Nuri Bilge Ceylan | 2023 | 197 min | Turkish with English subtitles) A young art teacher hopes to be transferred to Istanbul after completing his mandatory duty in a remote village school in Anatolia. After accusations of inappropriate contact with a student surface, his hopes of escape fade and he descends further into an existential crisis.