Envy

It’s the 1930s. The Republic Day Ball is in progress in Zonguldak, a coal mining town in Turkey. Among the invited guests are the newcomers to this small and boring town: Halit, a mine engineer; his gorgeous wife, Mükerrem; and Halit’s sister and unwanted household member, Seniha. When Nüshet, whose father is the richest man in town, asks Mükerrem for a dance, Seniha, who has been watching them from a dark corner, immediately realizes that Mükerrem will not be able to resist the incredible (and feminine) beauty of this young man. At the same moment, she also knows that God would lift her up from the place where she has long surrendered to a fate of ugliness, to a place where she would be the one who determines the destiny of beauty. “Although the novel seems to be a story based on human themes -ugliness, beauty, envy and passion- I thought about making a film based on Envy, because its story mainly addressed the subject of fate. The story of Seniha, whose fate had been determined by her ugliness, and her transformation from being someone who surrendered to this fate to being the one who would write the fate of beauty, which she so abhors, is an uncommon story about the human soul. I thought a story which questions beauty from the standpoint of ugliness without care or cover would contribute to the effort of understanding of and telling a painful human condition. Zeki Demirkubuz