Big Man, Little Love (Büyük Adam Küçük Aşk)

Big Man, Little Love is a 2001 drama film written and directed by Handan İpekçi. A co-production of Turkey, Greece and Hungary, it opened nationwide in Turkey on October 19, 2001, and was released internationally under the title Hejar. Often cited as the first Turkish production to feature the Kurdish language, the film was shot in Turkish and Kurdish, with music by Serdar Yalçın and Mazlum Çimen and cinematography by Erdal Kahraman.

The story follows Hejar, a young Kurdish girl who loses her relatives in a police raid and speaks only Kurdish, and Rıfat Bey, a 75-year-old retired judge preparing to move into a nursing home. The relationship between the staunchly republican old man and the stubborn child begins in hostility, but in time each learns the other's language and, eventually, to love one another. Şükran Güngör and Dilan Erçetin lead the cast alongside Füsun Demirel, Yıldız Kenter and İsmail Hakkı Şen. The film won five Golden Orange awards at Antalya plus honors in Cairo and Cologne, and was Turkey's submission for Best Foreign Language Film at the 74th Academy Awards.