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French-backed ‘Mustang,’ set in Turkey, has global girl-power message – it’s a MUST SEE!!

Film nights – We started with the showing of ‘MUSTANG‘  on 31st May – £5 (includes one glass of wine + nibbles)

In a village in northern Turkey, five sisters are walking home from school, playing innocently with some boys. The immorality of their play sets off a scandal that has unexpected consequences. The family home is progressively transformed into a prison; instruction in homemaking replaces school and marriages start being arranged. The five sisters who share a common passion for freedom, find ways of getting around the constraints imposed on them. 

The film serves as both a specific story about Turkey and also as a broader allegory for challenges faced by young women around the world. In the film, five orphaned sisters live with their uncle and grandmother in a village on the Black Sea. After they are wrongly reported for inappropriate behavior while playing with some boys on a beach, they are made prisoners in their own home, with severe restrictions over what they wear, where they go and what they do. Individually and together, the girls struggle for independence and their own identities, trying to do nothing more than just be themselves.

“Even if it seems like it’s telling a story from a little village in Turkey, it’s actually a universal issue,” said actress Elit Iscan, 22. “I think every woman is facing some kind of inequality in her life, whether once or many times, so I think everyone is finding something from their lives.”

images of actresses
They are not sisters – just five strangers Their likeness even alarms the actors themselves, who range in age from 14 to 22. Only Iscan has acted before. “When I first saw Tugba, it was like looking in a mirror,” says Doguslu, re-enacting how her jaw dropped when they first met. Casting-wise, as far as Ergüven was concerned, that was entirely the point. Starting with Iscan, the actress whom she admittedly had in mind while writing the script, the director searched for unknown faces in unlikely places, including the airport (where Sunguroglu was discovered), looking for physical similarities, lively spirits, and “long hair—it’s something Turkish teenage girls have and appreciate.

mustang-poster                                    plain girls

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