Gözde Kural

Turkey's shimmering Tuz Lake, the country's second-largest lake, supplies 70% of its salt, even as its waters recede due to climate change. Here villagers still harvest pure, untreated salt. For widower Salih, salt is more than a livelihood – it's survival. Before dawn, he rides out on his loyal horse Fedai with his daughter Zeliş, gathering salt at sunrise and sharing the harvest with neighbours. But when Salih's friend Muhtar yields to the mayor's orders and a greedy corporation claims the lake's salt rights, villagers are barred from the shore and threatened with losing their horses. Salih refuses to give in. He makes forbidden journeys, devises schemes to outwit the ever-watchful gendarmes, and relies on his honest heart and loyal accomplices.

Afghanistan under the brutal rule of the Taliban. After surviving her family’s massacre, Leila has just one goal in life: to find her son Omid. But in a country where being a woman means being less than nothing, her chances are desperately slim, and so she chooses an extreme and dangerous solution. She radically changes her identity and sets out on a path where even the slightest hesitation can mean death.

Taking place in Afghanistan, which seems to have normalized after the war but is still seething under the surface, Toz is based on the emergence of secrets from a family's past one by one. Azra, Emir and Ahmet are three Afghan siblings born and raised in Istanbul. After their mother's death, Azra sets off to find out why she inherited a house in Afghanistan, to see the house and to really get to know her family. She ignores her brother Emir's concerns and goes to her uncle, who refuses to tell her anything. Her uncle is uncomfortable with her even going out alone and is rude to his wife and daughter. Azra gets close to a handsome and polite café owner whom she meets by chance and tries to reach her relatives, whose existence she has just learned about, through this man.