Virtue (Fazilet) (translated)

Fazilet is a 1989 Turkish feature film directed by İrfan Tözüm from a screenplay by İhsan Yüce. Hülya Avşar takes the leading role, supported by a cast that includes Yaman Okay, Merih Akalın, Engin İnal and Yüce himself.

The drama follows the young woman who gives the film its title. As a small child, Fazilet is taken into the household of a ballet teacher married to a wealthy building contractor, where she grows up in servitude. Later she is married off to a construction worker from her home village. Crushed by the social standing she was born into, she retreats into a world of fantasy, searching for an identity of her own and gradually transforming herself.

Weaving class divisions together with one woman's struggle for self-realisation, the film earned the Turkish Ministry of Culture's Incentive Award in 1990.