About Dry Grasses

Dir. Nuri Bilge Ceylan. 2023, 197 mins. Turkey. In Turkish with English subtitles, DCP. With Deniz Celiloğlu, Merve Dizdar, Musab Ekici. One of contemporary cinema’s greatest and most ambitious philosophical directors, Turkish auteur Nuri Bilge Ceylan (Once Upon a Time in Anatolia) has fashioned one of his most compelling human dramas in About Dry Grasses. Set in snowy, isolated Anatolia, the film follows a public-school art teacher named Samet (Deniz Celiloğlu), who yearns for a less provincial life and finds himself caught up in a classroom controversy that threatens to overwhelm his livelihood. At the same time, he is drawn to Nuray (Merve Dizdar), a fellow teacher and firebrand who is new to town and who forces him to confront his own intellectual and political shortcomings. Burrowing in with his characters, penetrating the deepest recesses of their wishes, desires, and hypocrisies, Ceylan finds consistently creative, even astonishing ways of portraying the life of the mind. 

Tickets: $17.50 / $12 senior and students / $10 youth (ages 3–17) / discounted for MoMI members ($7–$11). There is a $1.50 transaction fee per ticket for all online purchases. The cost of admission may be applied toward a same-day purchase of a membership. 

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