Influenced by improvisational storytellers and folksingers in the region where he was born, director Reis Celik began this project with a crew of two, himself and an actor and the attempt to improvise his story from just one key word – “intransigence”. With no written script, though a year in technical preparation,the two-man crew set off for the Cildir mountain town of Ardahan a 1,000 miles away from their Istanbul base ( with no hotels, living in a type of igloo at temps. of –20 below.) With his actor and Celik on camera,lights, sound and location tasks ,they gather their local storytellers, who will use “intransigence” as their starting point. Context is a race between a scheming red minibus owner and a rival horse sleigh driver across a frozen lake. While race is on, the locals tell each tales from the region about stubborn characters who won’t change their ways. Among the titles performed by fellow townsmen are “Wishbone,” “Five Straws of One Broken Heart” and “Saho,the Swindler” The film took an Istanbul Festival and Strasbourg doc fest top prize last year.-.A.M.