The Vow (Adak) (translated)

In 1979 the Turkish drama Adak (The Vow, also known as The Sacrifice) came from Atıf Yılmaz, who also produced it through Yeşilçam Film. It examines ritual and superstition in rural life, setting fiction beside documentary-style testimony. The color film runs 99 minutes. It was lined up for the canceled 17th Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival and later received Belated Golden Oranges for Best Screenplay and Best Actor.

The story draws on a real incident from a Southeastern village in 1962-64. Müslüm, a poor young man, elopes with his sweetheart Gülbahar and marries her. Hardship sends him to another city as a laborer, where he is blamed for a gold theft and jailed. A devout man, he vows to offer his firstborn to God if he is cleared. The real thief emerges, and on returning home he finds his wife pregnant. Tarık Akan plays the lead and Necla Nazır plays Gülbahar, with Yaman Okay, Erol Keskin, Celile Toyon and Deniz Türkali in support.

Başar Sabuncu adapted the screenplay from a story by Faruk Erem; the music is by Yalçın Tura and the cinematography by İzzet Akay. It is notable as the first Turkish film to interleave scientific commentary from subject experts with the events. The critic Rekin Teksoy called it a "pathological tale".