Critics reviews

There are no big gestures here, but nuanced acting that gives the impression of tremendous honesty. Everything about this film feels real, adding to its impact. All this and beautiful photography too. Wrong Rosary is probably the best film to come out of Turkey all year, and one of the best romances made anywhere.

The plot sounds like something out of a Harold Robbins novel, but Mahmut Fazil Coskun carefully eliminates any hint of melodrama with the spare, measured, observational visuals of his debut, “Wrong Rosary.” Set in an Istanbul of windy streets, antiquarian bookstores and seafront cafes, pic underplays all the elements of the impossible love between a young muezzin and a sheltered woman raised to be a nun, making the city itself a character through which the protags communicate.

Shot on classy, slighty dusty/milky high-definition DV, this character-based charmer tackles some weighty and topical issues relating to cultural and religious divides, but does so with a strain of gentle humour that prevents things from getting too preachy or worthy.