The Town that Drove Away

Hasankeyf, an Anatolian village with a Kurd majority, is ordered to vacate to make way for a dam. Destruction awaits the austere landscape and the villagers’ homes. The promise of a new life is a mere political tactic to negate Kurdish identity and demand obedience. Among those who resist submission is Burak, the village barber; not being married, he will lose his right to a home. So, too, Rengin, an old shepherd, will lose his animals. Their tightly knit world is torn from them. What is left is pride in a deep sense of belonging and dignity.