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Zephyr (Zefir)

Zephyr (Zefir)

Movie · 2010 · 4 people

Released abroad as Zephyr, Zefir marks director Belma Baş's debut feature film, a Turkish drama from 2010. Its quiet story, set on a remote mountain pasture, centers on a child's longing for her mother. Baş also wrote the screenplay, and the film is a thematic sequel to her short Poyraz (Boreas). It had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, was selected for the Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival and brought Baş the Best Screenplay award at the Istanbul Film Festival. It opened in Turkey on April 29, 2011, and runs 93 minutes.

At its heart is eleven-year-old Zefir, a headstrong girl who spends the summer holiday with her grandfather and grandmother in a highland house in the Eastern Black Sea mountains, waiting for her mother all season. When the mother finally turns up, she has come not to take her daughter away but to say goodbye. The cast includes Vahide Perçin and Cem Yılmaz and Nuray Şahin and Fuat Onan.

Shooting took place in summer 2009 on the Çambaşı highland in Ordu with local villagers in the cast. Cem Yılmaz is among the co-producers. Sinefekt, İstanbul Kamera/Işık, Gramofon and Ekip Film backed it, as did the Hubert Bals Fund and the Istanbul Film Festival's Meetings on the Bridge.

DirectorBelma Baş

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Cast

Vahide Perçin Vahide Perçin Actor · 61 years old Ay (Mother) Cem Yılmaz Cem Yılmaz Actor · 53 years old Nuray Şahin Ali Fuat Onan

Through different eyes

Cinephile Looks at script, editing and directing choices; keeps a distance from formula films.

Belma Baş's first feature, a thematic sequel to her short Poyraz, keeps the same minimalist sensibility: little dialogue, long takes and a narrative left to the rhythm of nature. The highland shooting, with local villagers in front of the camera, gives the film a near-documentary texture and largely erases the artifice of fiction. The screenplay award in Istanbul recognizes a structure able to carry a child's waiting with so few events. Still, stretching a short-film sensibility to feature length has a cost: the narrative thins out in places, and the feeling of waiting edges toward repetition instead of turning into dramatic tension. It gives a lot to patient viewers, but it does not speak to everyone.

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

Zefir shows life in the Eastern Black Sea highlands without embellishment; shooting on the Çambaşı highland with local villagers in the cast presents rural life as an everyday reality rather than postcard beauty. A child spending the summer with her grandfather and grandmother reflects a family arrangement where generations are bound together but the parent stays far away. The film is not interested in explaining why the mother is away; what matters is how a child bears that absence. For those who want to think about the distance between city and countryside, between those who leave and those who stay, it is a quiet but meaningful observation.

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

Don't see Cem Yılmaz's name in the cast and expect a comedy; Zefir is a quiet, heavy drama. It is about a girl waiting for her mother and saying goodbye to her, so the subject is emotionally hard. The pace is slow, and young children will probably get bored. It can be watched with older children ready for emotional themes and with grandparents; talking about it afterwards is a good idea.

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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