Dizi Planet
Hunting Time (Av Zamanı)

Hunting Time (Av Zamanı)

Movie · 1988 · 5 people

Erden Kıral made Av Zamanı (Hunting Time) in 1988, a Turkish film that blends drama, political film and psychological storytelling. It reads the climate of fear and violence created by the 1980 military coup through the inner crisis of one writer. The screenplay is by Ferit Edgü and draws on Edgü's own work. The film won the Best Film award at the 2nd Ankara Film Festival and was selected for the 38th Berlin International Film Festival.

In days when terror rules daily life, a writer retreats to Cunda Island. There he meets a widowed woman who works on the island, and the inspiration she gives him brings him back to writing. Aytaç Arman plays the writer, though his voice was dubbed by Mustafa Alabora. Zihni Küçümen plays Ali Bey, Şerif Sezer plays Zühre, Nüvit Özdoğru plays the murdered professor and Dilaver Uyanık plays Faik.

Kadri Yurdatap produced the film for Mine Film. The music is by Sarper Özsan, the cinematography by Kenan Ormanlar and the art direction by Nur Özalp, with Nevzat Dişiaçık and Muzaffer Karataş editing. The gaffer was Turgut Köse and Güliz Kucur was among the assistant directors. It was shot in colour on 35 mm and is counted among Turkey's award-winning festival films.

DirectorErden Kıral
Production companyMine Film

Reactions

You can pick up to 3 reactions.

Cast

Aytaç Arman Aytaç Arman Actor · died at 69 writer Zihni Küçümen Actor · died at 67 Ali Şerif Sezer Şerif Sezer Actor · 79 years old Nüvit Özdoğru Nüvit Özdoğru Actor · died at 77 Professor Dilaver Uyanık

Titles sharing this cast

More from this director

Through different eyes

Yeşilçam Nostalgic A viewer raised on the classics, looking for warm storytelling and strong acting.

Hunting Time is a long way from the warm melodramas of Yeşilçam; it speaks from inside a dark period. Ferit Edgü's screenplay, drawn from his own work, is one of the fine meetings of literature and cinema, and its focus on the writer's inner world has the flavour of a demanding but rewarding novel. A writer returning to his craft on Cunda Island, and the widowed woman who inspires him, remind us that people can create again even in the midst of fear. An eye looking for a classic story may find it heavy, but that weight is the weight of the era.

Cinephile Looks at script, editing and directing choices; keeps a distance from formula films.

Erden Kıral chooses to read the climate of fear left by the 1980 coup not through events head-on but through a writer's inner crisis, a bold move that turns a political film into a psychological one. The danger in that structure is plain: stories that turn inward can stall, and the violence outside can fade into an abstract backdrop. One striking detail is that the lead, Aytaç Arman, was dubbed by Mustafa Alabora; pairing one face with another voice splits the performance between two actors and may feel odd to today's audience. The Best Film award at the Ankara Film Festival and the Berlin selection show the film was taken seriously in its day.

History & Society Lens Asks about the period, the social background and what the work reflects.

The film looks at the fear and violence of the 1980 military coup through the eyes of an intellectual. The writer leaving the city for Cunda Island seems to stand for the withdrawal and sense of being silenced of those years. A murdered professor among the characters recalls the anxiety of a time when violence also reached people of ideas. His bond with a widowed woman who works on the island sets the different worlds of the urban intellectual and the islanders side by side. A thought-provoking document for anyone who wants to understand the coup years through a writer's eyes.

These are not reader reviews: they are short editorial takes written from different viewer perspectives with AI assistance. Reader reviews are below.

Reviews (0)

Log in Log in to write a review.

Comments