Burning Days

Burning Days (Kurak Günler) is a Turkish-French drama film, directed by Emin Alper and released in 2022. The film centres on Emre (Selahattin Paşalı), a lawyer newly appointed as the state prosecutor in a small drought-ridden town plagued by sinkholes, who is drawn into political conflicts around local corruption, with his authority challenged both by being drugged at a party where a young woman named Peknez (Eylul Ersoz) was raped, as well as by allegations that he is having a sexual relationship with Murat (Ekin Koç), the editor of the local anti-establishment newspaper.

The cast also includes Erol Babaoglu, Erdem Senocak, Selin Yeninci, Sinan Demirer, Nizam Namidar, Ali Seçkiner Alıcı, Onur Gürçay, Mehmet Kervanci, Hatice Aslan, Gönenç Acaroglu, Salih Aydin, Tuncay Demiras, Mustafa Elma and Enver Husrevoglu.

Distribution
The film premiered in the Un Certain Regard program at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, where it was a nominee for the Queer Palm.

It had its Turkish premiere at the Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival in October 2022.

Controversy
In December 2022, well after the film had already premiered both at Cannes and Antalya, the Turkish General Directorate of Cinema demanded repayment of the production funding it had granted to the film. Although they did not officially state a reason for the demand, it was believed to relate to the controversy around the film's LGBTQ themes.

Awards
Özcan Vardar and Eytan Ipeker won the European Film Award for Best Editor at the 35th European Film Awards.

The film won nine awards at Antalya, including Best Director (Alper), Best Actor (Paşalı), Best Supporting Actor (Babaoğlu), Best Cinematography (Christos Karamanis), Best Music (Stefan Will), Best Editing (Vardar, İpeker), the Turkish Film Critics’ Association Award and the Cahide Sonku Award (Çiğdem Mater).