A Tale of Three Sisters
Three sisters from a small Turkish mountain village each try to escape traditions in their own way in this entrancing family drama.
Şevket’s three daughters – Reyhan, Nurhan and Havva – live with their foster families in the city. Somehow, they all get sent back to their father, who lives in a small house in the mountains of northeast Turkey. One because the child she was looking after died, another because her behaviour was unacceptable. The eldest has been living with her father for a while already, because of a pregnancy. Şevket is too poor to support his daughters. Deprived of their dreams of a better life, the sisters try to hold on to each other.
Central to the story is the besleme tradition, whereby girls from poor rural families are placed with richer families, occupying an uneasy limbo between foster child and household servant. It happened to the mother of director Emin Alper. A TALE OF THREE SISTERS, an enchanting fairy tale and raw realistic drama, won the Best Director award as well as the CICAE Art Cinema Award at the Sarajevo Film Festival.