‘This Film Will Represent the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: The Good Are the Irish, the Bad Are the English, and the Ugly Is the Famine’

It may sound like a funny premise for a film, but a Turkish director wants to make a movie about Ottoman aid to Ireland during the Great Famine. It’s basically your run-of-the-mill unlikely friendship movie — Fried Green Potatoes , if you will. Also, charming old Ireland has been given pretty exhaustive treatment in the narrative arts, so maybe a fez-topped pasha is just the thing to spice up a worn-out topic. The town of Drogheda in County Louth, where the Ottoman ships were docked, still has a star and crescent on its coat of arms, so the story seems to be one of real significance.

The film, called Famine , will be “a story of love, jealousy, betrayal, hope, and honor,” according to the Daily Zaman :

“Famine” will tell the story of an Irish girl, Mary, whose life changes when she meets Fatih, a young Turkish man sent over by the sultan with the aid relief for sufferers of the famine. The two decide to marry and Mary plans to return with Fatih to Turkey. The only problem is that Mary is trapped in an unhappy engagement to James, a fiery Brit who is prepared to do anything to stand in the way of her plans to escape.