Motherland Hotel

Zebercet (a beautiful performance by Macit Koper) runs a small provincial hotel that’s seen better days but still exudes a certain charm. One day, a beautiful, somewhat mysterious woman from Ankara comes to spend the night. She and Zebercet engage in some light conversation, and she promises that she’ll return to the hotel “next week” for a longer stay. But the week passes, and then another, and time begins to weigh more and more heavily on Zebercet, driving him further into his own thoughts and fantasies. Based on the novel by Yusuf Atılgan, Motherland Hotel is both an effective portrait of a character gradually losing his grip on reality as well as a revealing chronicle of the sights and sounds of small-town Turkey, with its historic buildings, coffee houses, and official calls for prayer. Director Ömer Kavur transforms the hotel itself into one of the characters, its shadows concealing the secrets and phantoms that haunt Zebercet.