Biyograficim
Albüm

Album

Movie · 2016 · 3 people

Album (Albüm) is the first feature film of Mehmet Can Mertoğlu, who wrote and directed it. A Turkish-Romanian-French tragicomedy, it reached Turkish cinemas on 4 November 2016. It had its world premiere on 12 May 2016 in the Critics' Week section of the 69th Cannes Film Festival, the only Turkish film competing that year, and won the France 4 Visionary Award. It then took the best film prize, the Heart of Sarajevo, at the 21st Sarajevo Film Festival.

The story centres on Cüneyt, a history teacher, and Bahar Bahtiyaroğlu, a civil servant at a tax office. The couple, in their late thirties and married for years, cannot have a child naturally and decide to adopt a baby. They want the child to love them as biological parents, so they try to hide the adoption from everyone. One preparation is a retrospective photo album, made as if the baby were theirs from pregnancy onward. Through this tragicomic effort, the film offers a social critique of the middle class.

Şebnem Bozoklu plays Bahar and Murat Kılıç plays Cüneyt. Müfit Kayacan, Rıza Akın, Muttalip Müjdeci, Zuhal Gencer Erkaya and Mihriban Er are also in the cast. Eytan İpeker produced, Marius Panduru shot it and M3 Film distributed it.

DirectorMehmet Can Mertoğlu
Production companyKamara Film

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Cast

Şebnem Bozoklu Şebnem Bozoklu Actor · 47 years old Müfit Kayacan Müfit Kayacan Actor · 67 years old Cemal Serbest Rıza Akın Actor · 1955 – 2022

Titles sharing this cast

Through different eyes

Cinephile Looks at script, editing and directing choices; keeps a distance from formula films.

Mehmet Can Mertoğlu's first feature opens with a confident voice. Album follows the tragicomic efforts of a couple who make a retrospective pregnancy album to hide an adoption, never tipping into exaggeration and with an almost dry humour. That tone, aiming for an uneasy smile rather than a laugh, explains the attention at Cannes Critics' Week and the best film prize in Sarajevo. Marius Panduru's camera captures the stiffness of bureaucracy and of middle-class homes well. But a story built on a single idea begins to repeat itself in the second half; the critique is sharp, but the dramatic momentum is not equally strong.

History & Society Lens Asks about the period, the social background and what the work reflects.

Album is less about a baby than about the fear of what the neighbours will say. A history teacher and a tax-office clerk trying to keep an adoption secret lay bare the meaning the middle class attaches to appearances, to the family as an institution and to blood ties. The fake pregnancy album becomes an ironic symbol of how much society prizes the picture of a 'normal family'. The film builds this critique through everyday details rather than slogans. Given how hard adoption still is to talk about openly, the approach makes you laugh and think at the same time.

Family Viewer Asks whether the whole household can watch it; cares about humour and heart.

The title and subject sound family-friendly, but it's not one to watch with the kids. It's built on not being able to have children, on adoption and on lies, and its humour is quiet and needling, not the kind little ones get. Adults will find a lot in it, especially couples who have thought about adopting or felt pressure from those around them. But anyone expecting a quick, cheerful family comedy will be let down; the pace is quite slow.

These are not reader reviews: they are short editorial takes written from different viewer perspectives with AI assistance. Reader reviews are below.

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