İstanbul, 1922
AIMDb Rating
28K
Your Rating
Popularity
8
“The city was changing names. They had to change cities.”
In the autumn of 1922, with the Ottoman Empire dissolving and the new Republic not yet declared, a translator working for the occupying Allied administration tries to evacuate three families — a Greek Orthodox, a Jewish, and an Armenian — from the same crumbling apartment building near the Golden Horn. He has six papers to sign and seventeen people to save. The river will not wait, and neither will the city.
- Director
- Cem Tekinalp
- Writers
- Cem Tekinalp · Ayşe Yıldırım
- Stars
- Selim Pamir · Defne Aksoy · Murat Demirbaş ›
Top Cast (5)
Selim Pamir
Hakkı Bey
Defne Aksoy
Mira Levi
Murat Demirbaş
Captain Vahid
Eleni Voutsa
Despina Andreou
Tariq Adnan
Father Suheil
User Reviews
5 reviewsA delicate historical achievement
by world_cinema_devotee
Tekinalp handles a famously difficult moment in Istanbul's history with extraordinary care. No villains, no heroes — only people in a building making decisions that will define their grandchildren. Selim Pamir's translator is the moral center and he carries it.
Quietly devastating
by history_film_jl
Refuses to dramatize the history beyond its actual emotional truth. The decision the translator makes in the final act is set up beat by beat. I exhaled audibly when the credits rolled.
Genuinely multicultural filmmaking
by festival_circuit
Three communities, three languages on screen, three perspectives held with care. Defne Aksoy and Eleni Voutsa especially deserve mention.
Too much history, too little film
by casual_movie_fan
Subject is fascinating but the script occasionally becomes a lecture. When the film trusts its characters it sings. When it doesn't, it lingers.
An important national film
by turkish_cinema_fan
Tekinalp does something Turkish cinema rarely does — speaks honestly about who lived in this city before the Republic and what happened to them. The Hagia Triada scene is unforgettable.
Details
- Release date
- April 19, 2013 (Turkey)
- Country of origin
- Turkey, Greece, France
- Language
- Turkish, Greek, Ladino, French
- Also known as
- İstanbul 1922 · Constantinople, 1922 · Estambul, 1922
- Filming locations
- Beyoğlu, Istanbul, Turkey · Balat, Istanbul, Turkey · Princes' Islands, Istanbul, Turkey · Thessaloniki, Greece
- Production companies
- Karaköy Films · Levantine Pictures · Cinéma du Sud
Box office
- Budget
- $3,200,000 (estimated)
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $24,000
- Gross US & Canada
- $480,000
- Gross worldwide
- $4,280,000
Technical specs
- Runtime
- 2h 18m
- Color
- Color
- Sound mix
- Dolby Digital
- Aspect ratio
- 2.39 : 1
