The Shadow Play (Gölge Oyunu)

The Shadow Play is a 1992 Turkish film written and directed by Yavuz Turgul. Şener Şen stars as Abidin and Şevket Altuğ as Mahmut, two close friends scraping by as entertainers in nightclubs. Mahmut, raised in an orphanage, is shy and sensitive, while Abidin, a former sailor, is a roguish womanizer. Their routine lives are upended when Kumru, a beautiful deaf and mute young woman, enters their world.

The pair take her in and help her search for her mother, Zeliha, but Kumru's presence drives a wedge between the friends and their partnership dissolves. After Abidin sinks into despair, Mahmut saves him and the two reunite. When Kumru vanishes without a trace and no one around them remembers she ever existed — even their shared photograph shows only the two men — they are left wondering whether what they lived was a dream or reality.

Produced by Türker İnanoğlu with music by Attila Özdemiroğlu, the film blends drama and comedy and occupies a distinctive place in Turgul's filmography thanks to its fantastical touches.