Through the years, Ms. Polat has made many films, the latest of which, En Garde, received the Silver Leopard for Second Best Film, and brought the Best Actress Award to Pinar Erincin and Maria Kwiatkowsky at the Locarno International Film Festival in 2004.
En Garde tells the story of 16-year-old Alice, who is enrolled in a Catholic educational school for girls at the mercy of her mother. Alice has an acute sense of hearing and feels that she perceives the world around her differently from other people. Although she prefers solitude, Alice befriends Berivan, a Kurdish girl stranded in the school who is hoping for good news from the German immigration authorities. Alice gradually opens up to Berivan, but their friendship takes a dramatic turn when Berivan falls in love with a boy named Ilir. En Garde deals with the feeling of alienation – in one’s own country and own life – independently of issues of nationality, and also truly tells a moving story of a girl who learns to overcome her fears through friendship.
After visiting Ohio State University, Yale and Bryn Mawr College, Ms. Polat
will come to Randolph-Macon on Friday, April 14, at 7:30 p.m. Copley Science
Center, Room 101, 304 Caroline Street. A panel discussion and reception will
follow the R-MC event.