Sultan

Sultan is a 1978 Turkish comedy-drama film directed by Kartal Tibet from a screenplay by Yavuz Turgul and produced by Arzu Film. It stars Türkân Şoray alongside Bulut Aras, Adile Naşit and Şener Şen. Şoray plays Sultan, a widowed mother of four living in an Istanbul squatter district who earns her keep cleaning nearby homes. She falls for Kemal, a minibus driver, but Kemal's father, the neighborhood headman, has set his sights on the land beneath the shanties, which a planned highway is about to make valuable. Although he had sold those plots years earlier, he now tries to buy them back cheaply and drive the squatters out. The community rises up in collective resistance, and Sultan and Kemal join the fight. Shot in the Rumelihisarı neighborhood of Istanbul's Sarıyer district, the film is regarded as one of the significant Yeşilçam works dealing with squatting, neighborhood culture and urban life. The music was composed by Cahit Berkay and Yavuz Turgul, and the film opened on 1 December 1978.