PODCAST| Nicolò Comotti interviews Michael Onder, director of the film Taksim Hold’em.
Michael Onder, director of Taksim Hold’em, is here in Lecce at the 19th edition of the European Cinema Festival. Taksim Hold’em is a wonderfully written and brilliantly sharp comedy, which finds remarkable depths and strengths while being physically confined in a comfortable middle class apartment in Instanbul. Softly attenuated by double-glazed windows, the clashes in Taksim square are just a distant noise. What we are left with are the clattering and hilarious contradictions that imbue Onder’s characters. Their morals and consequent actions are at stray, laid bare on the green felt of a poker table.
Taksim Hold’em: On a Saturday night in Istanbul, despite the pleas of his fiancée, cynical Alper refuses to join the anti-government protests happening on his doorstep. He just wants to stay home for his weekly dose of poker, played with his regular crew of high-school friends. Alper’s game is threatened as his friends set off on a series of passionate, and at times ill-thought-out, squabbles on whether they should join the demonstrations or not.
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