Sibel
25-year-old Sibel lives with her father and sister in a secluded village in the mountains of Turkey’s Black Sea region. Sibel is a mute, but she communicates by using the ancestral whistled language of the area.
Rejected by her fellow villagers, she relentlessly hunts down a wolf that is said to be prowling in the neighbouring forest, sparking off fears and fantasies among the village women. There she crosses path with a fugitive. Injured, threatening and vulnerable, he is the first one to take a fresh look at her. (Festival information)
The film tells the story of a young woman who lives in a community in the Black Sea region of Turkey, which preserves an ancestral whistling language and rituals. Marginalized by society because of her muteness, Sibel spends most of the time in the forest, where she is seeking that freedom she is unable to find in the village. Her love encounter with a mysterious fugitive starts a process of emancipation through which she discovers herself as a woman. The film creates a powerful image of a character who, by challenging patriarchal structures and identarian framings, becomes an example of dignity for the other women in the community.