Contesting Islam, Constructing Race & Sexuality

*Promoted by the University of Pittsburgh*

This title will be available starting October 27 on our virtual platform.

Set over the course of a tense day at an isolated boarding school, this moral drama follows a boy’s desperate fight to save his sick friend in the face of a rigid bureaucracy.

Kurdish director Ferit Karahan’s BROTHER’S KEEPER takes place at a strict boarding school tucked away in a windswept corner of the Anatolian mountains. The unforgiving setting of the school is matched by the hostile atmosphere inside, where the Turkish teachers look down upon their mostly poor, Kurdish pupils with open contempt and subject them to harsh punishments for the smallest infractions. Against this harsh backdrop and despite the indifference of the school’s administrators, young Yusuf (Samet Yıldız) must struggle to get help for his best friend Memo (Nurullah Alaca) when the boy falls mysteriously ill in the night. Meanwhile, a snowstorm sets in, knocking out the building’s heat and making passage in and out of the school nearly impossible. As more details of the circumstances leading up to Memo’s illness come to light, it’s a race against the clock to save him before it’s too late. Ingeniously plotted and beautifully acted, BROTHER’S KEEPER is a moving parable, offering a microcosm of the best and worst of human nature in a society run on fear and repression.