| Details | View the trailer Based on an actual 1963 coup attempt, Mahmut Fazil Coşkun’s deadpan comedy, which won a Special Jury Prize at the 2018 Venice Film Festival, balances menace with mordant humor. Taking place over the course of one night, it follows four retired colonels who are under orders to take over an Istanbul radio station and announce what they believe is a successful coup. What begins as a tense political drama soon becomes a comedy of errors when nothing goes according to plan. The station manager complains that he’s never informed about these coups in advance, the keys to the broadcast booth can’t be located, and the coup leaders in Ankara are mysteriously difficult to reach, leading to a host of frustrating mishaps for the bumbling colonels. “Playing like an unholy mix of bone-dry comedy and a deadly serious meditation on the transience of those in power, this is a precision-tooled little gem” (Boyd van Hoeij, Hollywood Reporter). (Dir.: Mahmut Fazil Coşkun, Turkey/Bulgaria, 2018, 94 min., DCP, Turkish with English subtitles) |
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