Toll Booth (Gişe Memuru)

Tolga Karaçelik wrote and directed Toll Booth (Gişe Memuru), a Turkish film from 2010 produced by BKM Film. Part drama, part dramatic comedy, its 96 minutes follow a toll attendant withdrawn into his own world. Shot just before the manual toll booths on the Bosphorus Bridge were switched to an automated system, it reached cinemas on May 6, 2011, after screening at the Istanbul Film Festival.

Kenan works at the Çatalca toll plazas and lives with his father, preferring to retreat into daydreams rather than deal with people. He talks to himself at his post and keeps his father at a distance too. During the day his father, who has a heart condition, is looked after by Nurgül, a talkative, maternal woman in her thirties who has known Kenan since childhood. This monotonous life, caught between work and home, changes the day a new operations chief arrives to inspect the Çatalca booths. Serkan Ercan plays the lead, with Nergis Öztürk, Nur Fettahoğlu, Sermet Yeşil and Zafer Diper in the cast.

At the 47th Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival the film won Best First Film, Best Cinematography (Ercan Özkan) and Best Actor (Serkan Ercan). It was among the anticipated Turkish releases of its year, though critics faulted the amateurish plain dialogue scenes and scores stayed middling.