Nuri Bilge Ceylan: In another place

Istanbul Modern, Kılıç Ali Paşa Mahallesi, No:1/1, Tophane İskele Caddesi No:1, Beyoğlu, 34433 Istanbul

‘In Another Place’ brings together 22 portraits by Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Turkey’s most respected filmmaker. Taken as he travelled through Turkey, India, Georgia, China, Morocco and Russia, each portrait is deeply imbued with a sense of place. Our lives, Ceylan seems to stress, are inseparable from our geography.

The title refers not merely to the many countries to which Ceylan has travelled, but also to characters of his films, who always yearn to be ‘somewhere other’. Unsurprisingly. And they have much to escape: daily struggles, abject loneliness, tedium, melancholy. They all pervade his images as his subjects gaze out at us. But for all their differences, it is emotions that we can identify with that Ceylan conveys.