“Ceviz Ağacı” ("Silenced Tree") by Turkish director Faysal Soysal has recevied the Best Film award at the 14th Annual Hamilton (New York) International Film Festival in the United States.
The production, starring Serdar Orçin, Sezin Akbaşoğulları, Kübra Kip, Mert Yavuzcan, Şebnem Dilligil and Rıza Akın, was screened as the opening film of the festival.
Receiving its fifth award from festivals in the U.S., the movie has received a total of 18 awards from foreign festivals to date. Supported by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and Turkey's state broadcaster TRT, "Silenced Tree" returned with awards from many festivals, including the 27th Adana Film Festival, Torino Underground Cinefest, the Balkan Panorama Film Festival and the 6th London City Film Awards.
In the movie, Hayati is a small-town literature teacher. A short while after his dominant wife abandons the wimpy and meek Hayati, the police find an unidentified female corpse by the lake. Hayati wants to state that the body belongs to his wife and to take the blame for the murder that someone else committed. But why would a person take responsibility for a murder he didn't commit? Instead of moving on with his life and taking control, Hayati passively accepts its blows and is only interested in digging into the past, until his discovery forces him to confront his own weakness and answer the question: Is standing idle while witnessing evil being done just as much of a sin as doing it?
