The Nightly Song of the Travellers

The Nightly Song of the Travellers is the belated début film by writer Chapour Haghighat, based on his own novel. While the book is set in the mountainous east of France, Haghighat has set the film version in East Anatolia, where the old tailor Yolan is searching for his birthplace. Yolan is of Turkish origin and has spent several years in jail for insulting a mullah in the Iranian town of Tabriz. He fled to Turkey with the little boy Ozal. Their quest is hard. The village they seek seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth. While they roam the country, the target of their journey seems to become less and less clear. A plethora of short, serious and comic encounters with grumpy truckers, gambling city folk and suspicious villagers provides a glimpse of an age-old world filled with traditions, faith and history. It is, however, a world in which the old man and the boy – nomads in settled surroundings – don’t seem to be able to find their place. They are increasingly just witnesses of the hectic life around them. A seer eventually shows them the way to a dark beach, where Yolan joins some dancing Armenians. ‘The world around him is at the same time commonplace and fantastical. This absurd and cruel world does not offer a well-defined path. Even the seer Yolan turns to leaves things up to chance. Yolan’s story is the absurdity and disarray of his life.’ (GT)