Ice Cream, I Scream (Dondurmam Gaymak)

Yüksel Aksu wrote and directed Dondurmam Gaymak (internationally Ice Cream, I Scream), an independent-minded Turkish comedy. It opened on November 24, 2006. A warm example of New Turkish Cinema, it recalls Bicycle Thieves and naive Latin American cinema. It won the Special Jury Award at the 25th Istanbul Film Festival and was Turkey's official submission for Best Foreign Language Film at the 79th Academy Awards, though it was not nominated.

The story is set in the 1990s in a small coastal town in Muğla, on the Aegean. Ali Usta, an ice-cream seller, shrugs off local mockery and takes on the big ice-cream brands. He makes a commercial for local television, buys a motorbike on credit and tours the villages with a makeshift trailer, trailed by ice-cream-hungry kids. The mischievous children covet the bike and steal it. Convinced a big brand took it, Ali Usta confronts the dealers. It pokes fun at corporate giants and defends vanishing small shopkeepers.

Turan Özdemir is the only professional actor; the other roles are played by people from the Muğla region. Memet Ali Alabora trained the cast and advised on acting. The film was funded largely by the director himself and by donations from Muğla, and its script was published as a book in 2007.