Sonbahar (Autumn)

2008. Germany/Turkey. Directed by Özcan Alper. This stunning elegy to lost youth and lost ideals follows Yusuf, just released from prison and headed to the majestic mountains of the eastern Black Sea region where he grew up. Without any friends or community left from his politically involved youth spent in the big city, he moves back into his mother's small shack on the mountainside and tries to reconnect to the landscape of his childhood. Sick and dispirited yet eager to believe in the possibilities of the future, he forges a tentative bond with a young local boy and an emotionally powerful connection with another outsider, a Georgian prostitute whose life is also waylaid by the shattered dreams of Socialist utopia. Alper's debut is a powerfully realized inner journey that reveals a profound talent for the lyrical use of landscape to express belief in the human spirit. 99 min.