Killing the Shadows (2006)

This is a story of two legendary men, Karagoz and Hacivat, who lived and died by their sense of humor. Bursa, 1330. A an ancient, crowded Roman city at the border of Byzantium. Changed hands 4 years ago and the small Ottoman tribe is just being transformed as a local state, on the remains of the old Eastern Roman Empire. The story takes place in an unrecorded period time, the last 2 months in the lives of two legendary Turkish stand-up comedians, Karagoz & Hacivat? They lived and died during the first clashes of the decaying Eastern Roman Empire and the first Ottomans of the 14th century Anatolia. Their stories and characters are adapted for traditional shadow theatre of the later Ottoman Empire, in modern Turkey and all over the Middle-East, Greece, and western Asia. Their legend and the truth about their tragic deaths are twisted and distorted, although their stingy humor still lingers on. After the the leader of the growing tribe of Ottomans, Orhan Gazi, notices the talents of two construction workers, famous among their friends with their clever and unending jokes, he rewarded them. But they were executed when he learns that they were keeping their co-workers laughing at their jokes during work hours, and causing a delay in the construction of the mosque to be named after Orhan Bey.