Sentenced to prison in 1997 as a university student at the age of 22, Yusuf is released on health grounds 10 years later. He returns to his village in the Black Sea region, where he’s welcomed only by his sick and elderly mother. It turns out that his father died while he was in prison and his older sister got married and moved away to the city. Economic factors mean that it’s almost exclusively old people who live in the mountain villages, and the only person Yusuf sees is his childhood friend Mikhail. As autumn slowly gives way to winter, Yusuf meets Eka, a beautiful Georgian hooker. Neither the timing nor the circumstances are right for these two people from different worlds. Even so, love becomes a final desperate attempt to grasp life and elude loneliness.

The most important reason for making this film was my identification with the main character. In Turkey my generation started university in the 1990s, and experienced the same things as Yusuf. We were trying to find our place in the struggle against the anti-democratic laws introduced by the victors of the 1980 coup d΄état. Thousands of left-wing students were jailed as political prisoners for having demanded greater freedom. I also had the same childhood as Yusuf, having grown up on the Turkish-Georgian border. I spent my time there listening to stories about people crossing the border, and that sense of movement, of transition is very present in Autumn. 

Locarno IFF (Art & Essai CICAE Prize), Adana FF -(Best Film & Special Jury Award), Sarajevo IFF, MedFF Rome (Special Mention), Festival on Wheels (Silver Goose & Best Film), Film Festival Rotterdam, Götheborg IFF, Cinequest, Sofia IFF, LA FF, Trento Film Festival (Golden Gentian Award), Vancouver International Film Festival, Middle East International Film Festival, Bergen International Film Festival, Kolkata Film Festival, Arpa Film Festival (Best Director), Noordelijk Film Festival (Best Film)