Trees Die Standing (Ağaçlar Ayakta Ölür) (translated)

Memduh Ün directed the black-and-white Turkish drama Ağaçlar Ayakta Ölür ("Trees Die Standing") in 1964. It adapts the Spanish playwright Alejandro Casona's 1949 play Los árboles mueren de pie and follows a kindly lie that keeps growing. Yıldız Kenter, Hulusi Kentmen, İzzet Günay and Semra Sar star. At the 1964 Golden Orange Film Festival the film won Best Actor for İzzet Günay and Best Supporting Actress for Yıldız Kenter.

The story unfolds in the 1960s in an old waterside mansion at Salacak in Istanbul, facing the Maiden's Tower. The grandmother, played by Yıldız Kenter, withdrew into herself after her grandson left home years earlier. Her husband Asım starts writing letters in the boy's name to bring her back to life, and the invention runs for years. When a telegram announces that the grandson is finally coming, the household is thrown into turmoil: someone must take his place, along with a young woman to play his wife. İzzet and Semra take on the roles of Orhan and Ayşe, and they grow genuinely attached to the old woman.

Atıf Yılmaz, Memduh Ün and Safa Önal wrote the screenplay. And Film and Uğur Film produced it, with Gani Turanlı as cinematographer and Fecri Ebcioğlu composing, running about 99 minutes.