寒栗

A man goes against the laws of God and man to help a friend, with unfortunate consequences, in this stylish drama from Turkish filmmaker Dervis Zaim. The story begins with a brief prologue set in the 13th Century, in which a calligrapher is completing a copy of the Koran and his assistant is sent out for ink so he can complete the project before an invading Mongol army attacks. Moving forward into the 21st Century, Selim Hodja (Serhat Kilic) is a descendent of the family that commissioned the Koran we saw in the preface. Selim has fallen on hard times and he wants to sell the rare holy book, and he turns to Ahmet (Mehmet Ali Nuroglu), an artist and calligrapher who has just finished a stretch in prison, for help in finding a buyer. Not willing to negotiate the black market for religious artifacts by himself, Ahmet turns to Cengiz (Mustafa Uzunyilmaz), a feared man in local organized crime circles, who says he can help them find a good price for the rare Koran. However, as Selim and Ahmet work more closely with Cengiz and his underlings, they're drawn deeper into a web of criminal behavior that they can't easily escape. Nokta (aka Dot) received its North American premiere at the 2008 Toronto World Film Festival.