Paper Lives

Paper Lives is a Turkish drama set in Istanbul, where Mehmet runs a waste depot in a poor neighbourhood. Though weakened by illness, he looks after the people around him, especially the street children whose lives resemble his own difficult past. When he finds an eight-year-old boy hiding in a rubbish bag, he takes him in and sets out to help the child find his mother. In doing so, Mehmet is forced to face the memories of his own troubled childhood.

The film was directed by Can Ulkay, working from a screenplay by Ercan Mehmet Erdem, with Onur Güvenatam producing. It followed Ulkay's Ayla: The Daughter of War and came before his later films The Sleeper and Lefter: The Story of the Ordinarius. Çağatay Ulusoy plays Mehmet, with Emir Ali Dogrul as the boy Ali. Ersin Arıcı, Turgay Tanülkü, Selen Öztürk and Tomris Çetinel appear in supporting roles. Running 96 minutes, the film was released in March 2021.

The ratings point to different reactions. On IMDb it holds 6.6 out of 10 from roughly 15,000 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 8 out of 10 from a much smaller base of 422 votes. The larger IMDb sample is more moderate, whereas the smaller TMDB group is markedly warmer toward the film.