Yeşim Ustaoğlu, the Turkish director who won San Sebastian’s Golden Shell in 2008, is back in competition with “What Remains,” a road movie about a poet who leaves her family to reclaim her creative voice.
The film, titled “Artakalan” in Turkey, follows Elif, a poet who has lost her creative drive and her appetite for life. She walks away without a plan and starts questioning family, love and freedom. Her departure opens a new chapter for her husband and young son. Öykü Karayel and Metin Akdülger lead the cast, joined by veteran İlyas Salman and young actor Ali Kayra Kul.
Ustaoğlu says the story grew from “a sense of suffocation and weariness” she noticed in herself and the people around her. She describes a habit of dropping everything to hit the road when personal heaviness and the political and social falsehoods she sees in Turkey become too much. In an interview with Cineuropa, she said her protagonist seeks “a kind of purity” that frees her to be herself.
Poet Birhan Keskin, a close friend of the director, helped shape the character. Keskin’s poems run through the narrative, alongside a score by guitarist and composer Şevket Akıncı. Ustaoğlu also leans on sound, listening and touch to carry meaning.
A decade separates this film from her last fiction feature, “Clair Obscur” (2016). She began developing the project in 2019, and the pandemic halted work. She resumed after 2021 while starting a related documentary, “On the Dry Rock,” set in an area where a dam flooded a valley. She used footage from it in “What Remains” and finished both films together.
The 126-minute production brings together Turkey, France, Luxembourg and Bulgaria. The Match Factory handles international sales, its third project with the director. Mubi, which owns the sales company and co-produced the film, holds all rights in Turkey and plans to announce release details in the coming months.
The film is one of 17 features vying for the Golden Shell at the 74th edition, which runs September 18-26. Ustaoğlu faces Mike Leigh, Pablo Larraín, Fatih Akin and Jesse Eisenberg. Her earlier work has also played at Berlin, Venice and Toronto.
