Four Ballads for my Father – Spring

In Cemile Sahin’s new film, Four Ballads for my Father – Spring, she introduces an expansive narrative told in layered cinematic styles. The film tells the story of the Kurdish family Bingöl, whose homeland was flooded by a Turkish water dam project and displaced its members between Istanbul, Paris and on the road. The family’s father was lost in the process, and his children vow to find him. Along the way, we learn through Sahin’s playful yet incisive direction about the politics of water in the region, a natural resource rivaling oil for its scarcity and power.