Biyograficim

Sultan

Movie · 1978 · 8 people

In 1978 Kartal Tibet directed the Yeşilçam film Sultan, combining drama and comedy with family and emotional elements. Yavuz Turgul wrote the screenplay and Nahit Ataman produced it under the Arzu Film banner. The roughly 88-minute color production opened on December 1, 1978. It is counted among the important films about neighborhood culture, squatter housing and the world of arabesk.

Türkan Şoray plays Sultan, a widow raising four children in a squatter district, cleaning nearby homes to get by. She falls for Kemal (Bulut Aras), a minibus driver. But Kemal's father, the neighborhood headman, has his eye on plots that a new ring road will make valuable; he sold them once and now buys them back cheaply to push residents out of their homes. The neighborhood answers this scheme with a collective resistance, and Sultan and Kemal join it. The cast also includes Adile Naşit (Ebe Hatice), Şener Şen (Bakkal Bahtiyar), İhsan Yüce (the headman), Erdal Özyağcılar (Çarli Cevat) and İlyas Salman (Bekçi Kolombo).

Shooting took place in the Rumelihisarı neighborhood of Istanbul's Sarıyer district, close to the North Campus of Boğaziçi University. Erdoğan Engin was the cinematographer, and the score was composed jointly by Cahit Berkay and Yavuz Turgul.

DirectorKartal Tibet
Production companyArzu Film

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Cast

Türkan Şoray Türkan Şoray Actor · 81 years old Sultan Adile Naşit Adile Naşit Film actor · died at 57 Ebe Hatice Şener Şen Şener Şen Actor · 84 years old Bahtiyar the Grocer İlyas Salman İlyas Salman Actor · 77 years old Watchman Kolombo Ekrem Dümer Ekrem Dümer Actor · died at 71 Police Inspector İhsan Yüce Actor · died at 61 Village Head Erdal Özyağcılar Erdal Özyağcılar Actor · 78 years old Çarli Cevat Billur Kalkavan Billur Kalkavan Actor · died at 59

Also in the cast: Bulut Aras (Kemal)

Titles sharing this cast

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Through different eyes

Yeşilçam Nostalgic A viewer raised on the classics, looking for warm storytelling and strong acting.

Sultan is one of the films that best captures the heart of Yeşilçam. Türkân Şoray plays a widow who cleans other people's homes to raise her four children with such dignity that even the poverty of the shantytown turns into warmth. Yavuz Turgul's script lets humor and sorrow walk hand in hand, and Adile Naşit's midwife Hatice and Şener Şen's grocer Bahtiyar turn the neighborhood into a living family. Kartal Tibet's plain storytelling, joined with the music by Cahit Berkay and Yavuz Turgul, holds up a mirror to a corner of old Istanbul. It still reminds us what solidarity means.

History & Society Lens Asks about the period, the social background and what the work reflects.

Sultan brings the shantytown neighborhoods growing on the edge of the big city in the late 1970s to the screen with an almost documentary sensitivity. Plots of land set to gain value from a new ring road, and a neighborhood headman trying to push residents out of their homes, raise the question of whom urbanization really serves, simply but effectively. The neighborhood's collective resistance shows the solidarity of the era, while its observations on arabesque culture and street life make the film a record of its time. Shot in Rumelihisarı, it carries traces of the Istanbul of those years. Its comic tone handles heavy social issues without ever sounding like a lecture.

Family Viewer Asks whether the whole household can watch it; cares about humor and heart.

Sultan is an old Yeşilçam film, but it's still lovely to watch as a family. It makes you laugh and think at the same time. A widowed mother working to raise her four children and a neighborhood standing together send good messages. That said, the threat of eviction and the poverty may feel a bit heavy for small children. The pace of older films may also feel slow to kids today. Ideal for grandparents and teenagers.

These are not reader reviews: they are short editorial takes written from different viewer perspectives with AI assistance. Reader reviews are below.

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