Hovering between great popular cinema and film d’auteur, we rediscover the excitement of film’s golden age, a time when an inspired Turkish filmmaker dedicated to exploration and experimentation could compete with the best Mexican, European and Egyptian films, led by a sensuality and awareness of cruelty that can be compared with early Buñuel.

Metin Erksan sets the universal story of Cain and Abel in the countryside, creating a rural drama deeply connected to Turkish culture and identity. The film seems to take its cue from the poetics of Italian neorealism but then quickly finds its own fresh visual language, intimate in every shot, that captures the power of nature and the complexity of human relations. This film makes us physically feel the scorching heat of working in the country during the summer; though this work documents a time that no longer exists, it also portrays timeless sentiments.

Gian Luca Farinelli

Dry Summer is a film of passion. A passion for water as well as the obsessive passion created by forbidden love. Who does water belong to? Can anyone actually own this fundamental life element, “the blood of the earth” as the director describes it?

Here is a film that, in the 45 years since it was made, has lost none of its universal qualities, none of its relevance, particularly today when wars and rebellions are waged because of droughts.
Dry Summer is an important piece of cinema because it is unlike any other film made at the time and its narrative is strikingly original. Dry Summer is a take on the Cain and Abel story… It is a contemporary version of the tragedy that scarred humanity thousands of years ago. And another version of the film’s story was to unfold in real life simply because the film was made. Dry Summer is a film of captivity…
Authorities at the time objected to Dry Summer representing Turkey overseas, which presented all kinds of obstacles when the film came to the Berlin Film Festival. The film walked away with the Golden Bear, but before success could even be celebrated it was ‘taken captive’ and completely forgotten for the next 45 years.
Today, in these times of intellectually dry summers, when greed is driving humanity to the brink of starvation, this film could hardly be more valid. Dry Summer is one of the most important legacies of Turkish cinema, and thanks to restoration it can be rediscovered by the next generations of audiences all over the world.

Fatih Akin