47 years of festival history, from 1974 until 2020

ATTENTION: The film will have English subtitles, not Dutch as previously announced.

For some, the countryside is a place of exile where all hopes ultimately merge with solitude. A boundless place of exile where all hopes and dreams merge with despair like the coinciding destinies of fathers and sons...

"While Ceylan usually deals with the conflicts and regrets of middle-aged men, 'The Wild Pear Tree' focuses on a younger archetype - the angst-riddled young man who aspires to become a famous writer. Unfortunately, Sinan is not particularly good at it. (...) 'The Wild Pear Tree' maintains a visual sophistication unparalleled in international cinema. Ceylan intersperses talky exposition with poetic imagery that deepens the story's thematic concerns, from a majestic swing of the camera that goes up and into a tree - the better to watch the leaves blowing in the breeze - to the slow tracking shot toward the edge of a well." (IndieWire)

"An ambitious, malcontent young graduate and would-be writer comes back to his rural village with a diploma but no job. Now he has to decide whether to take the exams to be a teacher like his old man. He senses defeat and disappointment with life in some of those local friends and family he has left behind. 'The Wild Pear Tree' is a gentle, beautifully made and magnificently acted movie from the Turkish film-maker and Palme winner Nuri Bilge Ceylan: garrulous, humorous and lugubrious in his unmistakable style. It's an unhurried, elegiac address to the idea of childhood and your home town - and how returning to both has a bittersweet savour. As in his previous film 'Winter Sleep', he draws on the spirit of Chekhov." (The Guardian)