HAREM SUARE Official Selection

Yildiz Palace, Istanbul, 1904. Outside, the revolution growls. Inside, a story-teller to the Sultan’s harem tells us that “within these walls, three things are essential: love, power and fear.” While the Sultan dreams his way through private operas, the machinations of passion and ambition provoke unorthodox allegiances and vicious betrayals among the members of the Sultan’s harem.

Safiye is a young concubine engaged in re-writing La Traviata because the Sultan demands a happy ending. She catches the attention of Nadir, one of the Sultan’s trusted black eunuchs, who decides Safiye should be chosen as a favorite. Nadir’s plans for Safiye are originally political, but their alliance develops into an incredible love story, further complicating their lives. Meanwhile, the Sultan’s political enemies grow more menacing, threatening the future of everyone inside the palace.

Ultimately, the story moves beyond life in the harem. Years later, bound for Italy in search of her family, Safiye recounts her life’s events to a young woman in a train station. The film is finally about story-telling, and its relationship to histories both personal and cultural. Through intricately overlapped stories and settings, HAREM SUARE powerfully suggests that how you live your life may not be as important as how you tell it.