Kerr, directed by Tayfun Pirselimoglu, is the Turkish submission for International Feature this year. The film is a slow, somber movie where you’re not exactly sure what’s going on, but you’re intrigued to find out what will happen. It starts out with a man who just attended his father’s funeral, after not seeing him for 12 years. On the day he’s scheduled to leave the small town where he grew up, he sees a murder happen in the train station. He heads to the police station to explain what happened, and the police tell him that he’s not allowed to leave town until they figure out what happened.
Has he become a suspect in the murder?
The man slowly finds out that the town has a serious problem with rabid dogs. In the distance, on speaker phones, he can hear the announcement: “Attention please, we inform our dear citizens that quarantine has been decreed, as stray dogs are still wandering the town. Staying at home is compulsory.” Nothing is ever as it seems in this place. Everything seems to repeat itself. There's a sense of trepidation with the inhabitants of this place. The man wants to leave town, but he can’t. No one can enter and no one can leave.
And this is life. As if you keep living the same things over again. The film makes you think about fear. “If you are seized by fear, you will fall down. If you don’t feel any fear, nothing happens. If someone is seized by fear, they will never escape it.” Because we all live in a world where we are all victims. It is more difficult to see what we believe, than to believe what we see. We all live one day. And one day we will perish.