07/08/2024 - Burak Çevik’s feature is set in 1978 and follows five youths who believe that the leftist revolution can be achieved through politics, rather than violence

Vienna-based sales outfit Square Eyes has boarded world sales on Burak Çevik’s latest feature Nothing in Its Place [+see also:
film review
film profile], Cineuropa has learnt.

Çevik is the founder of Fol Cinema Society, and curated experimental and arthouse film screenings between 2018 and 2020. His previous films The Pillar of Salt [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (2018), Belonging [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Burak Çevik
film profile] (2019) and Forms of Forgetting (2023) all premiered in the Forum strand of the Berlinale. To date, Nothing in Its Place has played at Karlovy Vary (in June) and Jeonju (in May).

The picture, penned by Çevik himself, is set in 1978, when five youths, who believe that the leftist revolution can be achieved through politics, rather than violence, gather in a house and begin to discuss the magazine they have published. The subsequent events that take place that night reveal the political chaos that existed in Turkey prior to the 1980 coup d’état.

The technical crew includes DoP Baris Aygen, composer Faten Kanaan and art director Erim Gayretli. Çevik also served as the editor. The main cast is made up of Burak Can Aras, Efe Tasdelen, Yigit Ege Yazar, Celal Ozturk, Onur Gozeten, Tufan Berk Yildiz and Eren Kol.

Nothing in Its Place was produced by Çevik himself for Fol Films (Turkey) and by Ipek Erden for Vayka Film (Turkey), and co-produced by Zsuzsanna Kiraly for Germany’s Flaneur Films and the Jeonju Cinema Project in South Korea.

Commenting on the acquisition, Square Eyes’ Wouter Jansen tells Cineuropa: “We’re happy to be on board with Burak’s new film, which we discovered at Karlovy Vary. Though it takes place in the 1970s, the film’s topic and themes remain very relevant. This [quality], combined with its precise and powerful storytelling and the fact that it is a formally challenging film, is very much in keeping with our line-up.”