Islamabad (Monitoring Desk) Death casts a long shadow over Cinema Jazireh, the tense new drama from Turkish filmmaker Gözde Kural (Dust), which will have its world premiere Thursday in the Crystal Globe Competition at the 59th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF).
Set in Afghanistan, where danger comes as readily from Taliban forces as from the harsh desert itself, the film explores a mother’s desperate fight for survival.
Produced by Kural along with Milad Khosravi and Bulut Reyhanoglu, Cinema Jazireh stars Feresteh Hosseini, Mazlum Sümer, Ali Karimi, Hamid Karimi, Meysam Demanze, and Reza Akhlagrad. The story follows Leila, who survives the massacre of her family only to embark on a near-impossible quest to find her son, Omid. “In a country where being a woman means being less than nothing, her chances are desperately slim,” reads the film’s synopsis, emphasizing the oppressive forces stacked against her. Even the slightest misstep could mean death.
Director Kural draws deeply from her own years of experience in Afghanistan. “Nothing is as it seems perfectly captures the Afghanistan experience,” she notes. “When I first arrived, fear was overwhelming—of the unknown, of isolation, of my own naivety. Twelve years later, that fear remains, but Afghanistan has become an obsession that pulls me back again and again.”
A newly released trailer heightens the sense of suffocating danger, introducing viewers to Leila’s consuming desperation and the life-or-death transformation she undergoes. With its haunting imagery and raw emotion, Cinema Jazireh promises to be one of Karlovy Vary’s most powerful entries.
