The Boston Turkish Film Festival runs from Friday, 3/24 through Sunday, 3/26 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and through 4/29 virtually. Click here for the schedule and ticket info, and watch the site for Joshua Polanski’s continuing coverage!

Apart from those of us who never moved away from home, we’ve all lost what was once our hometown at some point in our adult lives. The years pass and we are no longer capable of recognizing the places we grew up, the places we spent our most formative years. Noticing storefronts and streets that weren’t there before, everything feels off even if mentally you’re indifferent to the changes. In my case, the Little Caesers is now a predatory payday loan store and the Family Video (originally a Blockbuster) is now a gas station. That’s more or less the predicament of Can (Erdem Şenocak), a printer and son of a small town’s recently deceased tailor, in Kerr, a black-comedy by Tayfun Pirselimoğlu (who also wrote the book by the same name). The film’s East Coast Premiere with the BTFF was preceded by short films Echo and Hello Africa.

Readying to leave the town following the funeral, Can witnesses a murder, and the police require him to stay following his testimony. Without telling anyone other than the officers, the whole town seems to know he witnessed a murder, and several people even know suspicious details, such as the means of death. Unseen rumored rabid dogs catalyze a quarantine; curfews are announced with little reason; mysterious holes appear throughout the town, including one seemingly endless abyss connecting to purgatory in his father’s basement; and none of the townspeople present as sane.

The most confounding characteristic of this little town, though, is the way everyone speaks as if the rules of conversational reciprocation do not apply to them.

Continue reading at the Boston Hassle.