Crossings – tales of estrangement and escape (Queen’s Film Theatre from Friday 19 July)

Ms Lia is trying to track down her niece. A young lad Achi says he has information about her new address over the border from Georgia in Turkey. The ‘Lady’ and the ‘Boy’ (as they frequently refer to each other) make an unlikely couple who travel to Istanbul to search for Tekla. Writer/director Levan Akin of Crossing weaves together their search with the work of a lawyer Evrim who helps the city’s vulnerable trans community, and a young street boy who is looking after an even younger girl. Their stories merge in this tale of estrangement and escape.

Mzia Arabuli plays Ms Lia as a straight-talking woman who occasionally allows her latent empathy to emerge. Achi (played by Lucas Kankava) is opportunistic in finding an excuse to leave home and makes little attempt to temper his behaviour to bridge the generational gap. This clash of cultures is added to by Deniz Dumanli’s portrayal of trans woman Evrim, a human rights warrior in need of a qualification who pieces together Tekla’s likely fate.

As your eye catches the stray cats that are placed in so many of the Istanbul locations – assuming they didn’t just stroll into shot – you soon begin to see the sex workers and the street kids like the young lad (Izzet played by Bunyamin Deger) and the girl he treats like a sister (Gülpembe playted by Sema Sultan Elekci) who bring into view the poverty on the streets of colourful Istanbul.

A subplot between dating-distressed Evrim and taxi driver Ömer (Ziya Sudancikmaz) gives a richness to her sense of self in the city. A scene with the black-clad Ms Lia dancing reminded me – through the enormous contrast in vitality and colour – of the 2023 Pakistani film Joyland.

The edit is peppered with gorgeous long duration shots from cinematographer Lisabi Fridell’s which take their time to scan around locations, introduce the members of a household by catching them moving about a house, or sneaking up a less busy staircase in a ferry to look back on the bustle and finally rest on some live music in the stern.

While the initially-deceptive ending pushes the story beyond its natural elasticity, the film’s depiction of double-crossing, changes of heart, border crossing, and Lia’s journey of her own internal self-acceptance on top of her feelings about her estranged niece are satisfying reasons to make the trip to the cinema to see Crossing.

The on-screen question of “What if our families had searched for us?” isn’t directly answered, but there’s a sense from the story that the answer for some of Evrim’s clients and friends would have been love-filled, and for others it might have been deadly. New families have been forged in the sprawling city of 15 million people where it is possible to disappear.

Crossing is being screened in Queen’s Film Theatre from Friday 19 July.

  

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