BUTTERFLIES - KELEBEKLER

Tolga Karaçelik's bittersweet Sundance prizewinner sets up a familiarly dysfunctional family reunion, only to make several surprising switches in tone.

After a childhood event with lasting impact, Cemal, Kenan and Suzan lose contact with their father Mazhar. Unexpectedly, he gets in touch 30 years later: would his children like to visit their village of birth Hasanlar in rural Turkey?

And so, after temperamental deliberations in Istanbul, the frustrated astronaut with no practical experience (Cemal), the ailing voice actor (Kenan) and the mentally unstable teacher (Suzan) start a long, nostalgic drive. Once there, their father proves to have died. His last wish: to be buried on the hottest day of the year when the butterflies come to the village to die.

The camera playfully observes the trio uncover their unprocessed traumas during the increasingly absurd journey. Black humour permeates the scenes that introduce an unbearable village headman, a pragmatic imam and a wisecracking blind herdsman. While foraging chickens explode one by one in the streets.