Directed by: Yağmur Mısırlıoğlu

Genre: Fiction, Drama

Year: 2022

Running Time: 13’49”

Country: Turkey, Brazil

IMDb:

Synopsis: Only at the beginning of her thirties, Meryem makes a living by babysitting for a middle-class family, while also taking care of her own children and her mother with Alzheimer’s. Getting treated like a member of the family by the household she works for leads Meryem to an illusion of belonging which is further supported by the self-help books she discovered through them. Following those new teachings that influences her and the lifestyle she partakes in, Meryem decides to reset her priorities in life, but chooses the worst day possible to take action.

Director’s Statement:

NOT TODAY is a fictional drama that emphasises the undeniable role of socio-economic class in the society we’ve built, regardless how eagerly we try to ignore it under the roof of political correctness. Born into a relatively wealthy family yet raised by a working-class nanny, I experienced the notion of equality and the principle of equal opportunity crumbling in my head pretty young, pretty quick.
In the telltale environment of neoliberalism where individual comes first, where every dream is achievable, we tend to forget that there are more solid obstacles in life than our own minds.
Through Meryem’s eyes, a single mother nanny who is getting drawn into the reality of the family she works for rather than her own, NOT TODAY will display a distorted perception of polarity not only by its story but also by its own hybrid language which is an on purpose clash between shoulder mounted camera and static shots.
As a philosophy major, I aim to raise a question of a misplaced conflict that we all are tricked into by what we’re being exposed to every day: an endless possibility of a better self. I’d like to reach everyone that feels there’s something off with the reality offered by mainstream and that in search of a new discourse, in other words, audience of independent films around the world.