Return (Dönüş) (translated)

Released in 1972, the Turkish drama Dönüş ("Return") runs about 94 minutes. It is Türkân Şoray's first film as a director, and she also takes the female lead. Safa Önal wrote the script. The film is one of a run of Turkish pictures, starting in the early 1970s, that put the "Almancılar", the Turkish workers in Germany, at the centre of the story; in French it is Le Retour.

The story is built around two people: İbrahim (Kadir İnanır), a migrant worker in Germany, and his wife Gülcan (Türkân Şoray), whom he left in the village. İbrahim has grown ever more alienated from the society he lives in, and has even married a German woman and had a child. Gülcan lives alone in the village and her name becomes the subject of gossip. İbrahim sees it as his duty to clear his honour and returns home. A painful reckoning begins between the emigrant husband and his village wife. Bilâl İnci and Osman Alyanak also appear.

The production treats the damage labour migration does to family ties, and the weight of honour codes in the countryside, in an emotional register. Some viewers describe a film they have watched many times since childhood and cried at each time.