LION OF THE FUTURE AWARD AT VENICE FILM FESTIVAL 2012 Basri is a 55-year-old widower approaching retirement. Every day he walks for kilometres in his job as a rural railroad track inspector. His one co-worker, young Cemil, is a belligerent drunk. But Basri has other worries, haunted as he is by the disappearance of his son Seyfi 18 years earlier. Seyfi was a student at the University of Istanbul when he was arrested by the police for anti-government activities. Since then, his father has heard no news, despite his frequent letters to the authorities and his meeting with police chief Murat. His son’s fate is a complete mystery. With Mold, winner of the Lion of the Future for best first film at the last Venice Film Festival, where it screened during critics’ week, young director Ali Aydin joins the ranks of his fellow Turks Fatih Akin and Nuri Bilge Ceylan. Aydin even uses Ceylan’s favourite actor, Ercan Kesal. Contemplative and articulate, permeated by silences and omissions, the film maintains its fascinating mystery as a backdrop to a haunting philosophical meditation on guilt, loss and the weight of the past.