Present Tense

Present Tense, 2012

Turkey, HDCAM, Color, 110’, Turkish

Director: Belmin Söylemez

Cast: Sanem Öge, Şenay Aydın, Ozan Bilen

Like many young individuals in our society today, Mina is jobless, lonely, and unhappy. She wants to break off the bonds with her country and flee to America but she doesn’t have the money to realize this dream. She begins to work as a fortuneteller at a café so she can save up the amount needed and starts distributing people hope about their fate. While merging people with their expectations through the shapes in the coffee grounds, Mina also questions her own present and future. Meanwhile Fazi, the other fortuneteller working at the café, and Tayfun, the owner of the café, have different expectations from her. In this first feature film by Belmin Söylemez, known for her documentaries and shorts, we watch relationships of fate and friendship between people and Mina’s story of escape from the present to the future.