Gözde Kural
Directing
Biography
Gözde Kural was born in 1987 in Ankara, Turkey. She studied Advertising and Film-TV Production at Istanbul Bilgi University. After graduating, she began her career as an assistant director and went on to direct numerous music videos and commercials. She has written, directed, and produced three short films - Awake, The Braid, and The Laceration. In 2015, she wrote and directed her debut feature film Dust, which was shot in Afghanistan. Dust premiered at several international film festivals, including the Montreal World Film Festival (First Films Competition), Shanghai International Film Festival, and Mumbai International Film Festival. The film received multiple awards, including Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor at the Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival (2016), as well as Best Film and Best Screenplay at the Sweden Afghan International Film Festival (2017). Her second feature film, Cinema Jazireh, was recently completed and had its world premiere at the 59th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, where it won the Ecumenical Jury Award.
Known For
Taking place in Afghanistan, which seems to have normalized after the war but is still seething under the surface, Toz is based on the emergence of secrets from a family's past one by one. Azra, Emir and Ahmet are three Afghan siblings born and raised in Istanbul. After their mother's death, Azra sets off to find out why she inherited a house in Afghanistan, to see the house and to really get to know her family. She ignores her brother Emir's concerns and goes to her uncle, who refuses to tell her anything. Her uncle is uncomfortable with her even going out alone and is rude to his wife and daughter. Azra gets close to a handsome and polite café owner whom she meets by chance and tries to reach her relatives, whose existence she has just learned about, through this man.
Dust
Plot TBA; described as 'a Pedro Almodóvar-esque literary adaptation tracking a small-town woman’s late-in-life sexual awakening'.
G-Spot of My Soul
Afghanistan under the brutal rule of the Taliban. After surviving her family’s massacre, Leila has just one goal in life: to find her son Omid. But in a country where being a woman means being less than nothing, her chances are desperately slim, and so she chooses an extreme and dangerous solution. She radically changes her identity and sets out on a path where even the slightest hesitation can mean death.