Burning Days

Burning Days (Turkish: Kurak Günler) is a Turkish-French drama film, directed by Emin Alper and released in 2022.^[1] The film premiered in the Un Certain Regard program at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, where it was a nominee for the Queer Palm, before premiering in Turkey at the Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival in October 2022.^[2][3]

Burning Days
Film poster
Turkish	Kurak Günler
Directed by	Emin Alper
Written by	Emin Alper
Produced by	Nadir Öperli Kerem Çatay
Starring	Selahattin Paşalı Ekin Koç
Cinematography	Christos Karamanis
Edited by	Eytan Ipeker Özcan Vardar
Music by	Stefan Will
Production companies	Ay Yapım Liman Film
Distributed by	The Match Factory
Release date	23 May 2022 (2022-05-23) (Cannes)
Running time	104 minutes
Countries	Turkey France
Language	Turkish

Summary

The film centres on Emre, a lawyer newly appointed as the state prosecutor in a small drought-ridden town plagued by sinkholes, a result of over-drilling for groundwater. He is drawn into political conflicts around local corruption amidst mayoral elections, with his authority challenged both by being drugged at a party where a young gypsy woman is raped as well as by rumours that he is having an illicit affair with Murat, the editor of the local anti-establishment newspaper.^[4]

Cast

• Selahattin Paşalı as Emre Gündüz
• Selin Yeninci as Judge Zeynep
• Nizam Namidar as Selim Öztürk
• Erol Babaoğlu as Şahin Öztürk
• Erdem Şenocak as Kemal Gürçay
• Ekin Koç as Murat Körükçü

Controversy

In December 2022, well after the film had already premiered both at Cannes and Antalya, the Turkish General Directorate of Cinema demanded repayment of the production funding it had granted to the film.^[5] Although they did not officially state a reason for the demand, it was believed to relate to the controversy around the film's LGBTQ+ themes.^[5]

Awards

Özcan Vardar and Eytan Ipeker won the European Film Award for Best Editor at the 35th European Film Awards.^[6]

The film won nine awards at Antalya, including Best Director (Alper), Best Actor (Paşalı), Best Supporting Actor (Babaoğlu), Best Cinematography (Christos Karamanis), Best Music (Stefan Will), Best Editing (Vardar, İpeker), the Turkish Film Critics’ Association Award and the Cahide Sonku Award (Çiğdem Mater).^[7]