Kuma

Umut Dag, Austria, 2012, 93 min.
With: Nihal G. Koldas, Begüm Akkaya
In German and Turkish, with English Subtitles
Winner, Best Film, Salerno Shadowline Film Festival; Audience Award, Lecce Festival of European Cinema
Canadian Premiere

Saturday, 3 November 2012, 7:00 PM, Innis Town Hall

Watch trailer here: http://www.kuma-film.com/en/trailer

In her small Turkish village, everyone believes Ayse is traveling to Austria to marry Hasan, a young man her age. But, in fact,  the innocent nineteen-year-old girl is being sent to Vienna to become the second wife of Mustafa, Hasan’s father. The hostile reception of her new family is softened by Fatma, the first and devoted wife to Mustafa. Fatma, dying of cancer, is filled with a sort of happiness for the woman who will care for her husband. While it appears the film will turn around small daily dramas, the plot takes an unexpected turn and exposes new issues and repressed emotions.

This is the first film by Umut Dağ, the Vienna-born son of Kurdish immigrants. With a talented ensemble of actors, we enter closed rooms, primarily a world of women. Kuma, which means “second wife” in Turkish, presents an authentic portrait of the life of an immigrant family that came to Western Europe from a different culture, with the older generation who cling to tradition, and their children, who have absorbed the values of the new homeland. Kuma is not a film about integration per se, but about the life between two worlds.