# About Dry Grasses: Ceylan's 3-Hour Erzurum Epic

*Film, TV & Music · Marcus Reed · 2026-10-04*

## TL;DR

About Dry Grasses is reported to be Nuri Bilge Ceylan's ninth film, a drama of roughly 3 hours and 20 minutes reportedly shot in Erzurum, Turkey, and planned for a 2023 release. It follows Samet, a village teacher awaiting a transfer to Istanbul, whose hopes fade as the wait stretches on.

## Key facts

- About Dry Grasses is reported to be the ninth feature directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan, following The Wild Pear Tree.
- The film reportedly runs about three hours and twenty minutes and was reportedly shot in Erzurum, in eastern Turkey.
- The story centers on Samet, a teacher in a remote village who hopes to be reassigned to Istanbul.
- Ceylan reportedly wrote the screenplay with the writer Akın Aksu.
- The film was reportedly shot on a Sony Venice camera.

## A Teacher Waiting to Escape: The Story at the Heart of About Dry Grasses

About Dry Grasses (Kuru Otlar Üstüne) follows Samet, a young teacher stuck in a small Anatolian village, counting the days until his mandatory service ends and Istanbul finally calls. He waits. And waits. Then, after the waiting stretches past anything reasonable, he loses hope of ever escaping that bleak life. A fellow teacher named Nuray steps in and tries to help him find some perspective again.

That is the spine of the film, and it is a quiet one. The story is less about what happens than about what it feels like to sit at the edge of things: alienation, distance from the center, a life lived on the margins. The official synopsis describes it the same way, so this is not fan speculation. It is the shape of the story as it was reported.

The film was planned for a 2023 release, and the details first surfaced in a January 31, 2023 Ekşi Şeyler piece, published months before audiences actually sat down with it. The premise alone tells you what kind of movie this is. A man posted far from home, a posting he never chose, waiting for a transfer that may never come. Anyone who has ever counted down a contract, a tour, a job they did not want, knows that particular ache.

Nuray matters because she is the counterweight. Where Samet has gone numb, she still believes a shift in view is possible. Whether he takes it is the question the film keeps open.

## 3 Hours 20 Minutes in Erzurum: The Scale and Look of About Dry Grasses

About Dry Grasses arrives with a reported runtime of 3 hours and 20 minutes, though the original account recalled something closer to 3 hours and 17 minutes. Either way, you are settling in for a long, patient film, the kind that asks you to sit with a landscape until it starts talking back.

That landscape, as the story goes, is Erzurum: snow, distance, a wide Anatolian quiet that swallows people whole. The original account names it plainly as the shooting location, and if you have seen a Ceylan film before, you already know what cold air does to a face on camera.

The camera itself, reportedly, was a Sony Venice. For the technically curious, that choice matters. The Venice is built for low light and deep shadow, which is exactly what a snowbound Anatolian winter hands you for free.

Then there is the mood. Reading the story, the original writer kept circling back to the doctor in *Once Upon a Time in Anatolia*, that tired, watchful man who keeps looking at a life he cannot quite rejoin. The prediction was existential weight and heavy symbolism, and it reads less like a guess and more like pattern recognition.

Release was planned for 2023, and there were whispers about May 2023 at the time, unconfirmed and floating. The film did go on to premiere that May, so the calendar, at least, kept its promise.

What you are left with is scale: three-plus hours, a frozen province, a camera built for darkness, and a director who has never once been in a hurry.

## An 80-Page Text and a Father: How the About Dry Grasses Script Began

Before About Dry Grasses ever reached a screen, it reportedly began as something much smaller and far more private: an 80-page text that co-writer Akın Aksu wrote about his own relationship with his father. According to the original account, that manuscript is where the project's emotional DNA first took shape, long before any camera rolled.

The path to it ran through a meeting. Nuri Bilge Ceylan got to know Aksu and grew familiar with his personal story, and it was that material, a son's reckoning with his father, that pulled the director into the screenplay. As the story goes, the project was already being planned before Ceylan's previous feature, *The Wild Pear Tree*, which arrived in 2018. The precise timeline of that earlier planning is unconfirmed, but the long gestation fits a film that clearly carried years of thinking inside it.

Producer Alexandre Mallet-Guy, a name attached to Ceylan's work, reportedly called this his most ambitious film to date. In the same breath, he described it as a bright-lensed fresco touching on family, love, and relationships. Treat that description as reported rather than settled: it is a producer's framing, not a verified fact.

What is clear is the shape the story eventually took. About Dry Grasses follows Samet, a young teacher posted to a small village who is waiting on a transfer to Istanbul after his mandatory service. The wait stretches on, and his hope of escaping that bleak life drains away. A fellow teacher, Nuray, tries to help him find a different perspective, and the film turns into an inward journey through alienation, distance from the center, and what it means to exist at the edges.


## Frequently asked questions

**What is the plot of About Dry Grasses?**

About Dry Grasses follows a young teacher named Samet in a small Anatolian village, waiting to be posted to Istanbul after his mandatory service. When the wait drags on, he loses hope of escaping that bleak life, and his colleague Nuray helps him find a new perspective on it all.

**How long is About Dry Grasses?**

Reportedly, About Dry Grasses runs about 3 hours and 20 minutes, a long sit even by Nuri Bilge Ceylan's standards. The original account recalled roughly 3 hours and 17 minutes, so expect a runtime in that neighborhood rather than a short one.

**Where was it filmed?**

Reportedly, the film was shot in Erzurum, in the snowy reaches of Anatolia. That setting is not incidental. The cold, remote landscape mirrors the isolation at the heart of the story, and it connects the film to the director's earlier work set in the same region.

**Who wrote the script?**

The screenplay reportedly grew from an 80-page text by co-writer Akın Aksu, drawn from his own relationship with his father. Ceylan reportedly became involved after meeting Aksu and getting to know that personal story, and the material was reportedly planned before his previous film, The Wild Pear Tree (2018).

**Was it shot on a Sony Venice camera?**

Reportedly, yes. The film was shot with a Sony Venice camera. That choice fits the film's visual ambitions, and some accounts have described it as a bright-lensed fresco touching on family, love, and relationships, though that description remains unconfirmed.

**When was it released?**

About Dry Grasses was planned for a 2023 release, and it reportedly premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2023. At the time the first details surfaced in January 2023, a May debut was only a rumor, but the film went on to appear in that year's official selection. Editorial note: Details that remain unconfirmed, including certain production specifics, are presented here as reported and are hedged where verification is incomplete.

Canonical: https://curio.madeda.com/about-dry-grasses-ceylan-s-3-hour-erzurum-epic/