As eastern anatolian village tradition requires, 27 year old medine must serve oven-roasted lamb at her five year old son mert’s circumcision feast. Poor but determined, medine puts the family to work cutting branches to earn something towards the price of the sheep they need. Ismail, medine’s unemployed husband, is worried by his wife’s assertive behaviour. Envious of the attention mert gets, his elder sister vicdan makes mert believe that if a sheep is not found he will be slaughtered instead.
 
A singer-prostitute arrives in town. The village leader finds ısmail a job in the slaughterhouse. Friends there lead ısmail astray, and his weakness makes it even harder to buy the sheep. Medine persists. Mert has his own motivation to search for an animal, with determination that rivals his mother’s. Refusing even her grandmother’s support Medine receives help and solidarity from an unlikely source.

Direction: Kutlug Ataman

Script: Kutlug Ataman

Production: Kutlug Ataman, Tacım Acık

Cinematography: Feza Caldıran

Editing: Ali Aga

Production Design: Salih Karaman

Costume Design: Ruhsan Cimen

Sound: Sonat Hancer

Cast: Nesrin Cavadzade, Cahit Gok, Mert Tastan, Sıla Lara Canturk

Original Title: KUZU

Original Language: Turkish

Subtitles: English

Film Production Countries: Türkiye, Germany

Social Media: Facebook.com/kuzufilmi

Statement of the Director/s
When common values defended by a community cannot be realised for one or another reason, what happens to individuals who are the building blocks of the community?

The story of The Lamb is about Medine who is left alone by her own community and let down by her husband, just when she needs their support most. Circumstances force her to teach that community a lesson. Her actions also silence her husband and make him reconsider his role in the family.
From working the fields to taking care of husband, children and other relatives, virtually all the duties of family are imposed on women in contemporary Anatolian country life. Yet the weight of these responsibilities is still not acknowledged.
My aim is to talk about the confrontation between modernising forces and traditional ones.

Biography of the Director/s
Kutluğ Ataman graduated from UCLA with an MFA in 1988. He established himself as a film-maker with his first feature film Serpent’s Tale (Karanlık Sular) in 1994. Its many awards include Best Film, Director and Screenplay from the Turkish Film Critics Association at the Istanbul International Film Festival, plus the Jury Prize at the Ankara International Festival.

Ataman’s second feature Lola+Bilidikid (1998) was selected to open the Panorama section of the 49th International Berlin Film Festival. It was given the Best Film prize at New York’s The New Festival, and the Jury Special Prize at the Berlin Festival.

For his third feature 2 Girls (2005) Ataman was awarded Best Director and Best Film prizes at both the Ankara and Antalya Film Festivals, and Best Film at the Asian Film Festival in India.

Kutluğ Ataman was Chair of the Jury at the Istanbul International Film Festival in April 2009.

Ataman also has an art career which has run in parallel with his career as a film-maker. In 1997 he was invited to take part in the Istanbul Biennial with the long, documentary-style work “semiha b. unplugged". He was nominated for the 2004 Turner Prize, won the Carnegie Prize in the same year and the Capital Abraaj Prize in 2009.

FILMOGRAPHY
The Lamb (Kuzu) (2014)
Journey to the Moon (Aya Seyahat) (2009)
2 Girls (2 Genç Kız) (2005)
Lola+Bilidikid (1998)
Serpent’s Tale (Karanlık Sular) (1994)

Awards Won
64th Berlinale İnternational Film Festival CICAE PRIZE