Mustafa is a hard-working and ambitious agricultural merchant who is cold and austere towards his family. One day he has a brain hemorrhage on a business trip and goes into a coma after the operation. Güler, who has been suspecting that her husband is having an affair, is now convinced of it. Veysel, their teenage son, wants to leave the military academy and start a civilian life of his own. Ali, their 10-year-old son, has to cope both with his bully classmates and the chewing gums he has to sell. Hasan, Mustafa’s brother, chose to live a life in solitude after divorcing his wife and has always been an outsider to the family. But now he finds himself involved in his brother’s family after his brother goes into a coma. Hasan has to solve the mystery about his brother’s mistress and the money lost during his trip.

SUMMER BOOK is a film about the pace and rhythm of life in a small provincial city. Silifke, the town where the film was shot, is in the Mediterranean region and very close to the coast. Despite its beauty and great positioning, the town is rarely visited by tourists and is far from the cliché portrayal of Mediterranean towns, full of friendly, joyful and loud people. It is, instead, a bleak and incomplete city.
I am very much interested in the dramatic potential of non-dramatic moments in life. Presentation of dramatic moments without dramatization is the other face of my approach. Thus, on one hand I feel very connected to European minimalist directors like Bresson and the Dardenne brothers, and on the other, to Asian masters like Hou Hsiao-hsien, Edward Yang, Kiorastami and Ozu. The combination of long wide shots with functional close-ups with amateur actors, minimal acting and natural lighting will determine the style and atmosphere of this film. I think a film should try to be as loose as life itself.

Born in Kayseri, Turkey in 1977 Seyfi Teoman had studied Economics at Bogazici University in Istanbul. He lived in Lodz in Poland for two years, studying film directing at Polish National Film School. His short film APARTMENT (2004) was selected by many internationally acclaimed short film festivals, and received the Best Fiction Film Award in IFSAK National Short Film Competition in Turkey. He shot his first feature SUMMER BOOK in 2007. At the moment he is living in Istanbul and working on his second feature GHOSTS.