MY CRETAN LEMON TREE by Tahsin İşbilen

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MY CRETAN LEMON TREE
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Türkei 2007 | 56 Min Camera: Tahsin Isbilen Director: Tahsin Isbilen Editor: Tahsin Isbilen, Ebru AK Producer: Isin Turgut Score: Musfik Turgut Screenplay: Serkan Cabi

The story is about two immigrant women; Yurdanur and Malvina. Malvina's parents exchanged from Alacati, Izmir and settled on land of exchanged Turks in Heraklion-Crete. And Yurdanur's parents exchanged from Heraklion- Crete and settled on land of exchanged Greek in Izmir. Yurdanur is in her 60's and she belongs to the second generation of a Cretan exchanged family. In all spheres of her life there lies the evidence of a Cretan culture. For instance, she mainly cooks Cretan dishes. If she is in a happy mood, she still sings Cretan songs in Greek.And she attends to the club of Cretans. They are talking about their native land in Cretan which is not visited so far. Malvina is same ages and her family was exchanged from Izmir (Smyrna)-Alacati. She has grown up with the stories about the Asia Minor. She does not know Turkish, and has been in Izmir for several times. They have established The Heraklion Alacati Association in 1982. She also attends to a club where she sings her ancestry land's songs. The construction of the film is formed by these two characters and the stories are told by the songs belonging to the other side. The main concern, traced in the second, third and forth generations is the appreciation of the current situation.The relationships between the forth generation and their parents are the tense points in the film. Though being in Crete seems unimportant for the children, in fact they live under the dominance of Cretan culture in certain aspects.

[In Greek and Turkish, with Greek and Turkish subtitles]