'Winter Sleep' Turkish director's highest-grossing movie

Turkish Director Nuri Bilge Ceylan's seventh feature film, "Winter Sleep," winner of the Palme d'Or this year at the Cannes Film Festival, has become the esteemed director's most popular film yet.

The film, released just last month, has been watched so far by 237,260 people and grossed 2.7 million Turkish liras ($1.3 million), making it already the most popular and highest-grossing movie of the filmmaker's career.

"Winter Sleep," featuring the renowned actors Haluk Bilginer and Demet Akbag, is only the second Turkish feature ever to win the prestigious Palm d'Or, the highest prize given at Cannes. The first was "The Way," by Yilmaz Guney and Serif Goren, in 1982.

The awardwinning film, viewed by 43,495 people in its first week alone, was released June 13 in Turkey and grossed 536,890 Turkish liras the same week. Those numbers increased five times during its first month in theaters. The film is expected to draw more than 500,000 people by the end of year.

The director's 2002 feature, "Distant," won the 2003 Cannes Grand Prix, the second-most prestigious prize of the festival, and grossed 259,000 Turkish liras in 52 weeks, while his 2008 feature, "Three Monkeys," brought Ceylan the Best Director Award and grossed 1.2 million Turkish liras in 15 weeks.

"Winter Sleep," the longest film to ever compete for a prize at Cannes, at 196 minutes, is the story of a former actor's life in a remote town in Anatolia and examines the divisions in Turkish society.