With "Inner Landscapes", the Eye Filmmuseum presents the first exhibition in the Netherlands devoted to the work of multi-award-winning Turkish director and photographer Nuri Bilge Ceylan.
In 2014, Nuri Bilge Ceylan left the Cannes Film Festival with the Palme d'Or for Winter Sleep. This dense work, lasting over three hours, plunged us into the Anatolian landscape as far as the eye could see, between desert steppes and mountainous reliefs.
This supreme accolade followed two Grand Prix awards in Cannes for Uzak (2003) and Il était une fois en Anatolie (2011), the FIPRESCI International Critics' Award for Les Climats (2006) and the Prix de la mise en scène for Les Trois Singes (2008).
Today, the Eye Filmmuseum in Amsterdam is devoting its first exhibition to this great name of Turkish seventh art. Paying tribute to his work as a film director, on the one hand, but also to his lesser-known work as a photographer, on the other.
The Dutch institution thus combines its award-winning films with its immersive landscape shots, where dramatic lighting, nuanced colors and almost unflappable protagonists transport us into calm, resonant stories.
Contemplative environments
This 66-year-old master of the image, originally from Istanbul, began his career as a photographer, but soon made a name for himself on the silver screen with his feature-length films probing the human condition, his storytelling skills and his love of literature.
His works plunge us into meticulously composed visual narratives. Between light and shadow, Nuri Bilge Ceylan captures the bewitching beauty of the Turkish landscape and the nuanced depths of its inhabitants. The poignant stillness that emanates from these landscapes invites us on introspective journeys, where many of his characters are photographers, artists and teachers.
He thus makes the background a prominent backdrop, helping his protagonists evolve in their existential reflections, whether immersed in long interior shots or vast urban, natural or wild landscapes. "All are authentic individuals navigating personal struggles, seeking meaningful connections and learning to overcome loneliness and communication challenges," explains the museum.
Essence and materiality
Nuri Bilge Ceylan's directors reaffirm his sense of composition, mixing moving images and still shots, while his photographs, printed on large CinémaScope format, never cease to exude a cinematic sensibility.
In his creative process, the two respond and merge, creating within his scenarios a world where the abstract and the concrete move in a digging of temporal space. " His stories are rooted in Turkey's recent history and its many contrasts, between town and country, religion and secularism, intellectuals and workers, rich and poor, individualism and collectivism", continues the institution.
The photographic exhibition is accompanied by several screenings of his feature films, most of which are in 35 mm and part of the museum's collection. At the same time, Turkish-Dutch photographers, filmmakers and creative artists will analyze his work and how it resonates in various Turkish communities.
Nuri Bilge Ceylan's nuanced, humanistic artistic vision, often influenced by Anton Chekhov and Ingmar Bergman, continues to have a strong resonance and influence on contemporary Turkish cinema.
"Nuri Bilge Ceylan - Inner Landscapes
Eye Filmmuseum
IJpromenade 1, Amsterdam (Netherlands)
Until June1, 2025
