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13 SOFIA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
Director:  Yesim Ustaoglu
Cinematography:  Jacques Besse
Music:  Jean-Pierre Mas
Producers:  Yesim Ustaoglu , Sema Kaygusuz, Serkan Cakarer, Behrooz Hashemian, Setareh Farsi, Natacha Devillers, Catherine Burnia
Screenplay:  Selma Kaygusuz , Yesim Ustaoglu
Cast:  Tsilla Chelton , Derya Alabora , Ovul Avkiran
Production:  Ustaoglu Film Yapim/Silkroad Production/Les Petites Lumieres/Stromboli Pictures/The Match Factory
International distribution:  The Match Factory
Pandora’s Box
Pandoranin kutusu
Pandora’s Box
Turkey-France-Belgium-Germany , 2008, 114 min, color
Awards:  San Sebastian 2008 - "Golden Seashell” and “Silver Seashell" for best actress to Tsilla Chelton (tied)

Pandora’s Box is a story of alienation and isolation. It is a story of individuals whose lives have been shaped by a sterile, middle-class morality, a kind of human landscape, both universal and singular at the same time. The film is concerned with the curse of modernity. As simple lives begin to give way to the hum and glamour of an industrialized, globalized lifestyle, a Pandora’s box inevitably opens. Ustaoglu tells the story of an estranged family – two sisters, Nesrin and Guezin, and a brother, Mehmet – who live their comfortable, preoccupied lives in Istanbul. When the siblings find out that their elderly mother, Nusret, has gone missing, they return to their small coastal hometown to find her. As the group journeys trough the countryside, they realize that they are strangers in their own land – as ignorant to the ancient Turkish countryside as they are to each other. Most of all, however, they have become alienated from themselves, their dreams distracted by prejudice, nihilism and lazy concessions to the status quo. What starts out as a begrudging trip to find their mother turns into a voyage of self-discovery for the threesome, a poetic reordering of their psyches as the reality of the world around them is reflected back onto themselves.

Yesim Ustaoglu
Turkish director, born in Sarikamis in Eastern Turkey in 1960. After making several award-winning shorts and documentaries in Turkey, she made her feature film debut with 1994’s The Track, which was presented at numerous international festivals. Her second feature film, Journey to the Sun, won the Blue Angel Award for Best European Film at the Berlin IFF and the Best Film and Best Director prizes at the Istanbul IFF. Waiting for the Clouds was awarded with the Special Jury Award and the Best Actress Award at the Istanbul IFF.
1994  
1999  
2004  Waiting for the Clouds
2008  Pandoranin kutusu
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