MILK

Yusuf (18-20) is disconcerted when he learns that his mother Fatma (38-40) has a secret affair with the town's railroad stationmaster. Should he behave in accordance with the traditional male-dominated culture and traditions of the town or should he develop a new perspective in accordance with the new modernization process that is on-going in the area?
Yusuf and Fatma struggle to make a living of the milk they get from the cows. Their town is in the midst of rapid industrialization and this is quickly putting an end to traditional production methods and some of the trades traditional to the area.
When she falls in love with the town's stationmaster, Fatma's femininity is rekindled and she begins to change. Yusuf discovers that his mother's interest has turned to another man, but when he receives his draft notice, he suddenly goes off to the large city to take the Army's physical examination.
His mother's relationship, which he has tried to ignore up to now, and the pain at being considered unfit for military duty, force Yusuf, who comes from a male-dominated culture, to make some serious decisions.

Turkey's rural areas have been undergoing huge social, economic, and cultural changes over the past few years. A new way of life has awakened in those towns and villages that used to rely solely on agricultural pursuits.
This new way of life has not only changed the area economically, but has also forced change in traditional mores.
I implanted these changes in the heart of our young poet, Yusuf, and in the heart of his mother, a woman who yearns for a new way of life. As each character assumes their place in the events that are being lived out, the conflicts that Yusuf faces in the turmoil wrought by the clash of the traditional and the new are also being experienced by countless young people in Turkey.
The needs and desires of traditional rural women have always remained suppressed under the over-looming shadows of their fathers, husbands, sons and families.
In MILK, and in the Yusuf Trilogy in general, I want to focus on the centre of the painful change that is currently being played out within the mother-son relationship in Turkey.