Egg

A woman walks alone in a desolate Turkish countryside. She walks up to the camera and is gone, never to be seen again. In a small bookshop in Istanbul the telephone rings, leaving news about the woman’s departure. Some hours later, the poet Yusuf returns to his childhood hometown, where he hasn't been for years. The woman, his mother, is dead. Upon arrival he is met by a neglected, crumbling house and a distant relative he never knew existed.

A young girl, Ayla, has been living there with Yusuf's mother for five years. Her presence changes something in him. A newfound guilt overcomes him after the funeral. Will he manage to deal with it? On the day when he is due to return to Istanbul he finds out that he is obliged to perform the sacrifice his mother’s death prevented her from fulfilling. Ayla pressures him and together they set off to perform the traditional sacrifice ceremony. An accident forces Yusuf to confront everything he has been trying to evade. Unable to perform the sacrifice, Yusef and Ayla have to spend the night in a hotel. Caught up in the atmosphere of a wedding party at the hotel, Yusuf and Ayla find themselves drawn together. They are never to return home to that old town.

This is the first of a trilogy of films called Egg, Milk and Honey. Egg is the story of maturity. cvj