Our Grand Despair (Bizim Büyük Çaresizliğimiz) (translated)

Seyfi Teoman's 2011 Turkish film Bizim Büyük Çaresizliğimiz (Our Grand Despair) sits somewhere between drama and dramatic comedy. Teoman and Barış Bıçakçı co-wrote the screenplay, adapted from Bıçakçı's novel of the same title. A Turkey-Netherlands-Germany co-production, it premiered in competition at the 61st Berlin International Film Festival and opened in Turkey on April 15, 2011. It runs 102 minutes.

Set in Ankara, the story follows Ender and Çetin, old friends in their thirties who share a flat since Çetin came back to the city. Their friend Fikret, visiting from Germany, loses his parents in a car accident. He must return, but his sister Nihal, an Ankara University student two years from graduating, is now alone, so he entrusts her to Ender and Çetin. Grieving, Nihal at first keeps her distance from her flatmates, yet over time, helped by necessity, an unnamed closeness grows among the three. İlker Aksum, Fatih Al, Baki Davrak, Taner Birsel and Mehmet Ali Nuroğlu appear in the cast.

Critic Ali Ercivan writes that Teoman made a sincere urban film rather than a minimalist festival piece, and that the world of Bıçakçı's books arrives on screen convincingly; he rates it 4 out of 5.