Oh, Moon (A ay) (translated)

A ay is a 1988 Turkish drama written and directed by Reha Erdem, and it is his first feature-length film. Shot in black and white and running about 100 minutes, it marks the start of a career that has made Erdem one of the important directors of recent Turkish cinema, and its monochrome imagery gives it a distinctive flavour.

At the story's centre is a child named Yekta. Yekta lives with a grandfather and an aunt, and has never known the mother who one day jumped into a boat, rowed away and never came back. One day, looking out of a window, Yekta sees the mother's body in a boat moving away from the house. The child tells the others but cannot convince anyone. Yekta then decides to take a boat and leave as well, while the family tries to protect the child. The cast includes Münir Özkul, Yeşim Tozan, Kutluğ Ataman, Özcan Özgür, Gülşen Tuncer and Ertuğrul İlgin.

The film was restored years later. In 2023 Erdem came to the Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival for the first time, bringing this restored debut together with his latest film, Neandria.