The Horse is the story of a father-son relationship in the midst of hopeless urban poverty. A peasant and his son arrive in Istanbul, hoping to sell enough merchandise to send the boy to school, but their simplest dreams conflict with the harsh economic realities that are unblinkingly observed by Turkish director Ali Ozgenturk. Mixing quasi-documentary with almost surreal images, he captures both the emotional and physical aspects of modern Turkish life. “I wanted to make the hero a man who normally would never become the main character of a film,” Ozgenturk writes. “I wanted to transform dull death, a dull enthusiasm and dull yearning into pictures, to make a movie in such a way that you don't realize it is a movie. I wanted to interweave problems of everyday life so closely into the story of this film that they seem to be no longer common at all.” Ozgenturk is a former stage actor and director whose first feature, Hazal, was shown at Los Angeles' Filmex '81. The Horse premiered in this country at Filmex '82.