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The Cannes Film Festival is arguably the most famous film festival in the world. The mere mention of Cannes conjures up images of the blinding flashes of a million paparazzi cameras, red carpets, palm trees, and of course, celebrity parties. On the surface, the Cannes Film Festival is all about glamour. For the big evening premieres, professional star gazers wear tuxedos and flash their cameras while amateur star gazers wait behind barricades, watching as the black-tie attendees walk the great red carpet that leads to the Grand Theatre Lumiere. But at the same time, the films are just as important, which is why the Palm d’Or is so prestigious. One can’t help but stand in awe of the films that made their start on the croisette. Although the movements that started here would have started without a beach resort premiere, the festival gave them momentum, lent its glory to them for some reciprocation in the long run. So it is with great reverence and anticipation that thousands of film lovers arrive each year, hoping to discover films that are fresh, magnificent, daring and could change the film world. For two weeks a year, Cannes plays host to most of the international film industry, as filmmakers from all corners of the globe descend on the Croisette. A total of over 30,000 cinema professionals, including distributors, producers, directors, actors, technicians and the media, and over 200,000 people, meet in Cannes for 900 screenings at the Palais and numerous cinema events. The
competition category is usually the heart of the festival. The best film
in competition each year is awarded the Palme d'Or. Outside Hollywood,
it is the highest award a film can gain. It confers upon the film considerable
prestige. The Grand Jury Prize sounds quite fancy, but is actually considered
second place... Chris Peachment
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Some press clippings of UZAK during the festival - ...
Reading this movie as a sociological essay would be too reducing and may
lead to a misunderstanding of the author’s intention. The director’s purpose
goes much further and deals more with cinematographic issues. The strength
of this film lies on its faculty to express by cinematographic means a
man’s feeling of nonsense and meaninglessness of everydaylife...
Time here is straitly connected to space, the space “par excellence” in
this movie... ...
and so the most impressive competition entry so far has been 'Distant',
a superbly controlled look at a disintegrating friendship by Turkey's
Nuri Bilge Ceylan. The assurance, humanity and deceptive ease are evidence
of real talent ... ...
At this stage, the dark horse may be a film from Turkey by writer-director
Nuri Bilge Ceylan, entitled Uzak (Distant)... The gulf of loneliness in
both characters' lives is subtly and movingly evoked. Probably the most
harmonious and satisfying of the films offered so far, it may prove an
impediment to jurors who like events: Perhaps the major crisis of Distance
is the point at which a mouse gets stuck to some glued paper especially
for that purpose, and neither man knows quite how to kill it... ...
Slow, elusive, and melancholy, "Distant" plants itself unapologetically
in the European art-house tradition of Antonioni, Theo Angelopoulos and
André Tarkovsky, two of whose films flicker from Istanbul television sets
in this movie. For the first half-hour you find yourself posing some familiar
questions: Who are these people? What are they talking about? Why does
the camera move so slowly? But by almost imperceptible increments a story
takes shape, and some rich, mournful ideas emerge...
...
Ceylan displays a keen visual flair, both in his chiaroscuro compositions
and use of depth of field, which allows him to make the most of every
setting. The bleak, cold, wet winter landscape almost penetrates the pores
of the film to impart a similar feeling to the audience.The actors show
remarkable restraint, employing a minimalist approach that hints at, rather
than displays, their emotions. One strong feature is the use of natural
sound throughout...
...
The somber subject is treated with such grace and moments of wit, that
the film captivated audiances here... ...
One of the dark horses in this year’s race for the Palme d’Or, Nuri Bilge
Ceylan’s Uzak (Distant) has arrived in Cannes after receiving three major
awards at the Istanbul festival just last month... Nuri Bilge Ceylan is
an auteur in the fullest sense of that jaded filmmaking term... ...
it captures beautifully the petty irritations that accrue when one person
grudgingly opens up his home to a slight acquaintance or distant relative,
though here you're encouraged to identify with both the exasperated host
(deliberately switching to the most soporific TV channel available in
an effort to narcotize his buddy into bed, whereupon he breaks out the
porn) and the adrift visitor (who's ostensibly looking for work but spends
most of his time following beautiful women around and trying to summon
up the courage to speak to them). Gets a little sentimental near the end,
but Ceylan earns it; never exciting, exactly, but the cumulative impact
-- final shot's a stunner -- is considerable... ...
Highly impressive, in a much quieter way, was Uzak (Distant), a drama
by up-and-coming Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan. It's a slow, meditative
tale of two men - a disillusioned photographer and his unemployed friend
- experiencing varying shades of despair in a largely snowbound Istanbul.
No, don't stop reading - Ceylan's beautifully shot piece is one of those
films you immediately want to see again: moody and haunting. It has a
beautiful poker-faced sense of humour too - the critics here, for whatever
reason, seemed to particularly appreciate a sight gag about watching porn
but trying to persuade your flatmate that you're engrossed in Tarkovsky... ...
Written, directed, photographed and edited by the very talented Nuri Bilge
Ceylan, it was beautifully composed and exquisitely observed study of
loneliness deserving of some recognition come the prize giving next Sunday...
...
"Uzak", by Nuri Bilge Ceylan, is an engaging film that draws
you inside the life of an insular Istanbul photographer using some long,
fly-on-the-wall scenes with little or no dialogue. Muzaffer Ozdemir shines
as the life-weary protagonist, and the film, though far from a comedy,
is peppered with hilarious moments... ...
In the competition, the high art favorite is Turkish auteur Nuri Bilge
Ceylan's "Distant," a rarified look at male ennui told in a
beautifully composed, minimalist style... Gripping
is UZAK (Distant) by Turkish writer-director Nuri Bilge Ceylan. Yusuf,
from a small provincial city, is laid off with another thousand factory
workers. He hitches a ride to Istanbul to get employment as a sailor,
if possible. He stays with his childhood friend Mahmut, a successful art
photographer. The visit stretches as Yusuf finds no job in these days
of crisis. Nothing much happens as the focus switches to Mahmut --but
a sad portrait emerges of him. An excellent, quietly moving and original
work that gets close to cinematic minimalism within the framework of a
dismal, snowy, depressing weather. The director recently won Best Turkish
Film of the Year. He uses something like Bertolt Brecht s distancing effect
in a strangely non-judgmental movie which flirts with minimalism. Sadly,
one of the two main actors died in a car accident just when he had received
a major prize in Turkey (as did the other thespian) for his performance
in UZAK. ...
Presently ahead of the pack are François Ozon's deliciously wicked "Swimming
Pool," Gus Van Sant's disturbing and ruminative "Elephant"
and Nuri Bilge Ceylan's elegiac "Distant.. Eschewing more conventional
filmmaking devices and embracing the sort of deliberate pacing and economy
of camerawork seen in the films of Andrei Tarkovsky and Tsai Ming Liang
(as well as those directors' themes of loneliness and alienation), Ceylan's
"Distant" is a beautifully realized study of a middle-aged Turk
and his emotionally disconnected life as a successful photographer in
Istanbul. The drama is a slow, sad and meticulously designed character
study that brings to a close a trilogy of sorts Ceylan began with 1997's
"The Small Town" and 2000's "Clouds of May."... ...
what is striking about Ceylan's filming is time and discretion. This director
takes care to disappear in order for his camera to view the faces and
the movements of his characters. He takes the time to wait for the emotion
that will emerge from the corner of a wrinkle on the face, from an absent
glance inhabited by interior demons...
...
Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Turkish film Uzak has attracted some heavy betting
with the gentle way it charts the uneasy relationship between two men
from different sides of the track... ...
Nevertheless, von Trier looks fairly certain to walk off with another
Palme d’Or come Sunday, although there is substantial support building
for the Turkish entry Uzak, Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s beautifully composed study
of loneliness... ...
Turkish films have rarely featured prominently at Cannes in the two decades
since Yilmaz Guney's Yol won the Palme d'Or. It's cheering, then, that
the best-received movie so far this festival has been Nuri Bilge Ceylan's
Uzak ("Distant"). It's a lovely and deceptively quiet film that
explores themes of friendship and urban loneliness with considerable insight
and lasting emotional resonance... Yusuf (Mehmet Emin Toprak) has come
to Istanbul to stay with an old friend, Mahmut (Muzaffer Ozdemir), after
the factory in his home village shuts down. He has vague ideas about becoming
a seaman, but soon finds that he prefers to spend his days drifting through
the city and glancing at pretty girls. Mahmut, a photographer, is irritated
by the disruptions to his solitary regime that Yusuf causes and troubled
by the decision of his former wife to emigrate to Canada... Ceylan conveys
a palpable sense of how time is ebbing away for both the friends who are
united in their contrasting estrangements. The scenes he sets in snow-covered
Istanbul, from early morning side roads to deserted quaysides, are evocatively
shot, too. All told, Uzak is a marvellous tribute to the acting talents
of Toprak, who died shortly after the film was made. ...
Written, directed, photographed and edited by the very talented Nuri Bilge
Ceylan, it was beautifully composed and exquisitely observed study of
loneliness deserving of some recognition come the prize giving next Sunday... ...
Intellectuals loved Turkish entry "Uzak," a powerful study of
how a world-weary Istanbul man's home life is upset when a jobless cousin
moves in and invades his cherished privacy. Film magazine Screen International's
jury of 10 experts is currently ranking "Dogville" as the leader,
with "Uzak" second... ...
But based on word-of-mouth and the trade polls, Dogville's biggest threat
might be Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Uzak/Distant, which is getting raves from
everyone. At the very least Ceylan, who is also the film's writer and
producer, could take the Best Director prize... ...
Uzak, a Turkish film, has been widely liked - its director, Nuri Bilge
Ceylan, is a rising star in the arthouse world - but its style is quiet
and minimalist... And the winner is …? Lars and Nicole must be favourites
(for Golden Palm and Best Actress, respectively), but I guess anything
can happen. Find out tonight.
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Prize winners at the 56th Cannes film festival -
- Some press clippings after Cannes - ... The second prize, or
Grand Prix, went to what many felt was the best film in the festival,
Uzak (Distant), from Turkish auteur Nuri Bilge Ceylan. This is Ceylan's
third film (his first two have screened on SBS television) and he's a
master at understatement. ...
This existential Turkish drama was an early favorite for honors and won
two. This should set up Ceylan to be chosen as the Turkish submission
for the Academy foreign language Oscar this year... ...
Smart, observant and sad, Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan's third film
was the best feature in competition at Cannes this year. Though Elephant
got the Palme d'Or, Distant (Uzak) walked away with the grand jury prize
and acting citations for its two leads, one of whom, Mehmet Emin Toprak,
died in a car accident earlier this year. This tragedy adds another level
of poignance to Ceylan's essentially melancholy but often droll city-mouse/country-mouse
tale about an unhappy photographer (Muzaffer Özdemir) who reluctantly
shares his Constantinople apartment with an unemployed relative (Toprak)
from his hometown. Ceylan's spare, sly style has echoes of Kieslowski,
Tsai Ming-Liang and Aki Kaurismäki, yet feels fresh. ...
In stark contrast to many of the European entries, Distant (Uzak) by Turkish
director Nuri Bilge Ceylan was a joy. Centering on the relationship between
two cousins - one successful, the other relying on hospitality - it was
an acutely involving study of missed opportunity and disillusionment.
This was cinema to make you reassess your own life. The Grand Jury prize
was awarded to the director, while the Best Actor prize was rightfully
shared between the two leads, Muzzafer Ozdemir and Mehmet Emin Toprak,
the latter tragically killed in a recent accident... ...
With so many awards going to North America, Cannes retained its reputation
for favoring intellectual world cinema by giving two awards to Turkish
film ''Uzak'' (''Distant''), a moving study of how a man's home life is
upset when a jobless cousin moves in... ...
Taking the Grand Prix was the Turkish film "Uzak" (Distant),
a beautifully made, unapologetically artistic meditation on loneliness
and lack of connection that focuses on what happens when an unsophisticated
country cousin moves in with an Istanbul photographer... ...
a real jewel, a truly beautiful film: touching, funny and bittersweet...
It is shot with long, slow meditative takes in the manner of Tarkovsky,
but brings off sweet and playful moments of silent comedy. Slow or not,
I could happily have watched it all afternoon. It thoroughly deserved
its Grand Jury prize and the best actor prize... ...
Ceylan was the revelation of both the Istanbul Film Festival and the Cannes
Competition, where the superb quality of Uzak was confirmed by it deservedly
winning the Grand Jury Prize. His is a cinema of small incidents and contemplative
pacing here created by a tiny crew of five - it's almost the complete
antithesis of mainstream western cinema. And yet the acute behavioural
observations and eloquent sight gags have a strong contemporary feel...
Most of the time, though, this is art cinema taken to a logical extreme:
a languid, regretful acceptance of fate's harsh caprices, both in the
negative diegetic sense of the unforgiving Istanbul job market and in
Ceylan's exploitation of the evocative qualities of the harshest winter
in living memory - one that brought heavy snowfall to the city. A palpable
universe of longing is evoked from watching these two characters make
sense of their days, and the acting prize shared by non-professionals
Muzaffer Ozdemir and Mehmet Emin Toprak were throughly deserved...
...
Only Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Distant (swiftly acquired by
for the UK by Artificial Eye) can be said to have generated almost universal
acclaim... ...
But this jury, headed by French filmmaker Patrice Chéreau, is to be applauded
for its intelligence in awarding the runner-up Grand Prix to an excellent
film from Turkey: the critics’ favorite, Uzak, Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s demanding,
rewarding tale of alienated city life. Also wisely, the jury bestowed
a shared Best Actor prize on Uzak’s Muzaffer Özdemir and Mehmet Emin Toprak
as estranged cousins who come to share an Istanbul flat... ...
a quiet and powerful meditation on the loneliness of migration and lost
ideals, made for both a spectacular character study — the film won a bunch
of prizes, including Best Actor — and a fresh metaphor for the painful
heartache of arrested (economic and other sorts of) development... ...
But the biggest discovery at Cannes - and winner of the Grand Prix (the
second prize) was Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Distant, an intimate and moving
study of loneliness and frustration... Marvellous performances from Muzaffer
Ozdemir and Mehmet Emin Tonrak, who both shared the Best Actor Award and
stunning visuals - snow here is used as a recurrent motif to mirror the
bleakness and isolation of the protagonists - make this little gem of
a film a memorable experience. ...
Fortunately, the jury's other choices were less misguided. Both the Grand
Prix (basically second prize) and the Best Actor award went to Distant,
a spare, quietly enthralling character study by little-known Turkish director
Nuri Bilge Ceylan. Meditative and enigmatic, it sneaks up on you from
afar -- and that's clearly by design, given the masterful yet unobtrusive
way that Ceylan's compositions create a pointed dichotomy between foreground
and background elements (a formal strategy that probably sounds dry and
academic if you haven't experienced the film's droll sense of humor)... ...
The Grand Prix, the Cannes film festival’s second prize, went to Nuri
Bilge Ceylan’s Turkish entry, Uzak (Distant), a brooding but skillfully
composed cinematic essay on loneliness in a big city – Istanbul in this
case... The superbly shot film probes the troubled relationship between
a angst-ridden photographer and a younger cousin who arrives from their
village in search of a job on a ship...
...
The Grand Jury Prize went to Uzak by Turkish filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylan.
Marking something of a resurgence in Turkish film, Cannes proved a fertile
ground for that country, with Uzak also taking out best actor prizes for
Muzaffer Özdemir & Mehmet Emin Toprak. The award ceremony was however
tinged with sadness when it was revealed that Toprak had died in a car
accident.... ...
a beautifully moving film by the Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan, won
both the Grand Jury Prize and acting awards for its two male leads. Certainly
this award is something with which no-one could argue... ...
No matter that, even in what some considered the weakest Cannes lineup
in history, there were reasons not to give up on movies just yet. One
of those reasons was a marvelous film called Uzak, the third by Turkish
writer-director-. cinematographer-editor Nuri Bilge Ceylan, which won
the festival’s Grand Jury Prize. Set mostly in an Istanbul apartment,
where a jaded photographer (Muzaffer Ozdemir) plays host to his country-mouse
cousin (Mehmet Emin Toprak, who died in an auto accident shortly after
learning of Uzak’s Cannes acceptance), the film is a slow and meditative
rumination on a wonderful idea — the way you can come to feel distant
from your own life, as though you were watching it (like a cinema spectator)
from outside your body, unsure of whether you had made of it what you
were supposed to (or, in fact, anything purposeful at all)... ...
a film of wonderful meditative resonance which has subsequently and deservedly
gone on to win the Grand Jury Prize in Cannes. This superbly photographed
film, made with two terrific non-actors Muzaffer Ozdemir and Mehmet Emin
Toprak, is set in an unheard-of, snowbound Istanbul - all the harder to
credit when you emerged from the cinema into the balmy zephyrs of April.
Uzak set a standard which the other Turkish movies couldn't match, but
then neither would films from the rest of the world later on the croisette... ...
Hushed and melancholy, Sokurov's Father and Son and Nuri Bilge
Ceylan's Uzak - the latter the most worthy film in competition
- both charted the fraught relationship between two mail relatives.. Ceylan
confirms the promise of his previous two films in this study of loss,
solitude and drift. Ceylan is unconcerned with schema innocence and experience,
and more with parallel experiences of privation... ...
With his third feature, Turkish auteur Nuri Bilge Ceylan proves himself
a natural heir to cinematic poets like Andrei Tarkovsky and Abbas Kiarostami.
Distant even includes an amusing reference to Tarkovsky's Stalker. Distant
is a portrait of a country rutted in crisis, and it demonstrates a notable
restraint. But it also includes a surprising amount of wry humour, the
two man's forlorn defeat at the hands of a noisy mouse being one comic
high point. Ozdemir and Toprak shared the Best Actor award at Cannes,
and the two are as memorable an odd couple as cinema has seen ... ...
For me, though, the best film at Cannes was Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Distant,
an intimate and moving study of loneliness and frustration... Marvellous
performances from Muzaffer Ozdemir and Mehmet Emin Toprak, who both shared
the Best Actor Award, and stunning visuals -snow is used here as a recurrent
motif to mirror the bleakness and isolation of the protagonists- made
this little gem of a film a memorable experience...
- Turkish press during the festival (Turkish)
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Screen International - Ratings for the Cannes Competition films 2003
Film Comment - Ratings for the Cannes Competition films 2003
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56th
CANNES FILM FESTIVAL 2003 
