The CEO of a corporation finds himself kidnapped and tortured by two mysterious men for unknown reasons. As the story unfolds it is revealed that his kidnapping has a lot to do with the pollution his corporation causes leading to death of hundreds of people.
Cengiz Akaygün’s film ‘Free Monkeys’ makes one think about the uncontrolled and unregulated actions of big corporations happening in the world and their publicly unknown impact on the environment and on the people’s lives.
The main character’s torture is in fact a process meant to make him aware about the gravity of his own actions before being a punishment. It is therefore the director’s debate – which looks personal enough – about the cause of such things happening: the cause is rooted in their promoters’ lack of discernment between the good and bad, the promoters’ ‘disabled’ conscience, a conscience that has been altered by greed, by ambitions, by egocentrism which have made it ‘numb’. These kind of people cannot be normally explained the evil they are committing as they have lost the capacity to intellectually understand the notion. Their ability to refer to the world surrounding them is strictly connected on the money flow; this is the only concept they are able to process.
Masterfully filmed and directed, Cengiz Akaygün’s short film offers a very intense cinematographic experience. It is one of those films we can only be proud to have in TMFF’s portfolio.
For its fine depiction of characters and its refinement in sketching the contradictory human emotion, ‘Free Monkeys’ has been awarded by TMFF the 1st place as Best Film Of August 2016, and it has definitely earned its label as a ‘not to be missed one’.
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