Toll Booth (Gise Memuru) Tolga Karaçelik, Turkey, 2010, 96 minutes
A taciturn toll booth attendant shuffles between a suffocating home life with his ailing father and the monotony of the box where he works. Desperate to resist his father’s attempt to marry him off while determined to prove his worth by fixing his family’s broken-down car, he drives himself toward a nervous breakdown. After a reassignment to a desolate country road, he begins a flirtatious relationship with a woman who drives by each day. But is this salvation for the aging bachelor, or the further unraveling of his mind? An expert cast and keen art direction contribute to this wry, heartbreaking ode to lost dreams in a sleepwalking world. Turkish, with subtitles in English.
Global Lens 2012 is an annual, curated program of narrative feature films from Africa, Asia, Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East. Each film in the series is selected for its authentic voice, strong cinematics and unique cultural perspective, opening a window to the diverse world in which we live. More information can be found at www.globalfilm.org.