Berdel

Berdel is a 1990 Turkish drama film directed by Atıf Yılmaz, from a screenplay he wrote together with Sevgi Saygı and Yıldırım Türker. Named after the rural custom in which two families marry off their daughters to each other in an exchange, the film depicts how tradition weighs on women in the Anatolian countryside.

Ömer loves his wife Hanım, yet he is unhappy because she has borne him no son after five births. Determined to have a male heir, he decides to take a second wife, but he cannot afford the bride price. He therefore agrees to give one of his own daughters to the father of the woman he intends to marry. Fifteen-year-old Beyaz must abandon her dreams of a life with the young man she loves and is forced to wed an old, ailing stranger. The arrangement irreversibly alters the lives of the women in both households, and the tragedy does not end there.

Türkân Şoray plays Hanım and Tarık Akan plays Ömer, with Mine Çayıroğlu as Beyaz; the cast also includes Füsun Demirel, Gülşen Tuncer, Taner Barlas, and Levend Yılmaz.