HOW TO SAVE ASIYE? (ASİYE NASIL KURTULUR?), 1986

Türkiye | DCP, Color, 106’ | Turkish
Director: Atıf Yılmaz
Cast: Müjde Ar, Ali Poyrazoğlu, Hümeyra, Güler Ökten, Füsun Demirel

Adapted from Vasıf Öngören’s play of the same name, with a screenplay by Barış Pirhasan, the film is one of Atıf Yılmaz’s sharpest works on women, class, and social hypocrisy.

Seniye Gümüşçü, head of the anti-prostitution associations, visits a brothel in the Şirinsemt neighborhood after receiving a letter, but no woman named Asiye can be found. Instead, the women in the house take on different roles to reconstruct Asiye’s possible life and keep asking the same question: How to save Asiye? Transposing the alienation devices of epic theater to cinema, the film uses songs and plays-within-the-play to move sex work beyond a personal “fall from grace” narrative, linking it to class inequality, patriarchal order, and the exploitation of women’s labor. With Müjde Ar and a powerful ensemble cast, it interrogates the social structures that judge women in a sharp and ironic voice.

How to Save Asiye? was restored by the Istanbul Culture and Arts Foundation (IKSV) with the support of Zurich Insurance.