TEHRAN – “Silenced Tree”, a co-production between Iran and Turkey, has garnered 25 prestigious awards at 60 international film festivals.

 The joint production, directed by Turkish filmmaker Faysal Soysal, recently concluded its two-year festival tour, receiving 25 international awards, a public relations team of the film announced on Sunday. 

Among the accolades received by "Silenced Tree" are the best film and best music awards at the 27th Adana Film Festival in Turkey, best music and best actor awards at the Eurasia Film Festival in Russia, best adapted screenplay award at the Turin Film Festival in Italy and best editing and best film awards at the Balkan Panorama Film Festival in Turkey. 

Additional honors include best film and best actor awards at the 6th London City Film Awards, best foreign feature film award at the 6th Motion Picture Festival - New York Artist Association, best feature film award at the California Beautiful Art Film Festival and best director and best feature film awards at the 2nd Neptune Awards in Bologna. 

Ali Noori Oskouei, director of the acclaimed Iranian animated movie “Release from Heaven”, is the co-producer of the movie.

The film is about Hayati, a writer whose talent as well married life worsens. He is deeply obsessed with reviving a dried walnut tree at his father’s house. The more he tries to dig into his father’s past and death, the more confused and lost he gets. 

Finding out about his wife’s affair is a terrible blow, but his seemingly weak character does not allow him to react the way he is expected to. While struggling to get rid of his hellish life, he meets his best friend’s fiancée, who looks so much like his own ex-girlfriend, inspiring him to write again. Surprisingly, the walnut tree starts budding, too. 

Just as hope flares up inside him, his mother dies and his wife elopes with her lover. He can no longer take it and leaves the town. A couple of days later, the police discover the burned body of a woman. Hayati is arrested and accused of murder. Though innocent, he pleads guilty. 

“Silenced Tree” was first named “Walnut Tree”, but then it was renamed due to an Iranian production of the same title by Mohammad-Hossein Mahdavian. However, the film has kept the original name in its Turkish title. 

Featuring an all-Turkish cast including Serdar Orcin, Sezin Akbasogullar, Ali Mert Yavuzcan, and Kubra Kip, "Silenced Tree" is a collaborative production involving the Farabi Cinema Foundation, TRT Turkey's Cinema Section, and the Turkish Ministry of Culture's Cinema Department.

The film premiered in Iran in 2022 and is currently available to passengers on Turkish Airlines flights.

SAB/