Nuri Bilge Ceylan – Once Upon a Time in Anatolia

This book examines how Turkish filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylan approaches the themes of the countryside and the city, and how he has adopted—or perhaps created—what can be called rural realism in Turkish cinema. Ceylan’s films do not portray an imagined countryside of the past, idealized as an age of innocence, but rather depict the rural world as it exists today — what remains of it, or what it has become.

The book also includes an essay by Ceylan himself, placed before the final chapter, in which he reflects on the making of his acclaimed film The Wild Pear Tree. The concluding chapter gathers key interviews with Nuri Bilge Ceylan, shedding light on the defining moments of his cinematic journey and capturing the intricate interplay between cinema and life.