Turkish comic coup film wins Venice prize

VENICE

An hilarious black comedy about a botched coup in Turkey won a major prize at the Venice film festival Sept. 7.

"The Announcement", a deadpan satire based on a real-life military coup attempt in 1963, won the Best Mediterranean Film prize awarded annually by Italian critics.

The Hollywood Reporter had called the tragicomedy by Mahmut Fazıl Coşkun a "near perfect coup", praising its "unholy mix of bone-dry comedy and a deadly serious meditation on the transience of those in power".

Coşkun, 45, admitted parallels will be drawn with the failed coup to oust Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in 2016.

But Variety said the film was more about what happens when "the general population become pawns" in dangerous power games.

Eight people died in the failed 1963 coup led by Colonel Talat Aydemir, who was later hanged.

The film -- Coşkun’s third -- follows a group of violent but clueless plotters sent to Istanbul from the capital Ankara, but taking over the city’s radio station proves more complicated than they thought.

Soldiers involved in the chaotic 2016 coup attempt also got more than they bargained for when they attempted to shut down media outlets.