İnat Hikayeleri - adapts the Anatolian folk tradition of storytelling to cinema in a coalescence of the fiction, documentary, fiction and experimental genres.

The storytelling tradition is particularly vibrant in the Kars-Ardahan region of north-east Anatolia, where the director was born and raised. Snow-bound for seven months of the year, the region is characterised by the confluence of Azeri, Georgian, Kurdish, German and Russian cultures. This ethnic mosaic is mirrored in the richness of the local storytelling tradition. Centred around the home hearth or the local coffee-house, the tradition is played out by local, or wandering bards and troubadours. First they determine a theme collectively with their audience. Then they expand on this, in spoken word or song, to create an improvised narrative - or else an elaboration of tales already told - often involving interaction from the audience.

In many ways, the making of ´İnat Hikayeleri´ reflects this tradition. Director, Reis Çelik, set out for his home country with memories of the extraordinary tales his grandfather would weave, a single professional actor, Tuncel Kurtiz, and the theme of obstinacy. Working on and around the frozen lake of Çıldır, Çelik gathered dozens of local villagers to act alongside Kurtiz, many of whom had never seen a cinema screen before. He then elicited a series of improvised tales on his chosen theme and secured a broader narrative framework to incorporate the tales, again unscripted. The result is fiction, inasmuch as it contains dramatised narrative; documentary in its depiction of the region´s cultural diversity and tradition; and experimental in the manner of its making. But above all, it seeks to share and keep alive the age-old storytelling tradition, the product of thousands of disparate Anatolian cultures, which is now endangered by the creeping encroachment of popular, global culture.

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