Turkish director cancels trip to Tehran

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News

Film director Nuri Bilge Ceylan. AA photo

Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan has canceled his trip to Tehran allegedly due to his father’s illness, Tehran Times cited festival organizers as saying Feb. 5.

Ceylan was supposed to arrive in Tehran to promote his international award-wining movie “Bir Zamanlar Anadolu’da” (Once Upon a Time in Anatolia) at the Fajr International Film Festival, Iran’s most important film gala.

The movie is an entry to the festival of festivals’ section of the 30th edition of the Fajr International Film Festival underway in Tehran, the Persian service of ISNA reported.

“Once Upon a Time in Anatolia” shared the Grand Jury Prize of the 64th Cannes Film Festival with Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s “The Kid with a Bike.”

Ceylan’s film features an all-male cast led by Muhammet Uzuner, Yılmaz Erdoğan, Taner Birsel and Fırat Tanış in the roles of a doctor, a public prosecutor, a police chief and a murder suspect searching for a missing body in the vast steppes near a central Anatolian town.