1973
65’
Colour
Sweden
Adapted from a story of the same name by Yaşar Kemal, Barnet takes up the story of an impoverished villager, İsmail, and Zala, his wife. The experience of giving birth at home on her own has left Zala sick and debilitated. She refuses to go to the doctor on the basis that they have put all their savings into the crops in their field. But the frail young woman soon succumbs to the harsh conditions and lack of proper care, leaving İsmail alone with the baby. On top of everything else, İsmail has to work to pay off his debt to the landlord. If the baby is to survive, he must go knocking on the doors of the village in search of a wet nurse.
The fraught political situation prevailing in Turkey at the time meant having to shoot the film in Algeria, where nonetheless writer-director Barbro Karabuda ably brings to life the world of Yaşar Kemal with a little help from her art di- rector, Gürel Yontan, and cinematographer, Güneş Karabuda. Tuncel Kurtiz and Aliye Rona star alongside several high-profile Swedish names including Harriet Andersson, a familiar face from the films of Ingmar Bergman. Some 48 years after the making, the film is finally with audiences in Turkey for the very first time.
Barbro Karabuda (1935-2017) directed numerous documentaries with her cameraman husband, Güneş Karabuda. After her first foray into fiction with Barnet, she made the docudrama, Embassy (1974), and The black skull (1981), the adaptation of a story by Zülfü Livaneli, for Swedish Television. In 1991, she adapted another Yaşar Kemal story for the screen under the title, Violet Bay.