Crossing

Crossing is a kind of road movie that begins in a Georgian port city and ends in Istanbul; like all exemplars of the genre, the journey proves more important than the destination. Charting this uncertain path is Lia, who’s searching for her niece, Tekla, in the Turkish capital to honor her sister’s dying wish. She’s aided in that quest by Achi, a former neighbor of the missing person who jumps at the opportunity to escape the home where he’s spent his entire life thus far. Complicating matters is the fact that Tekla, a young trans woman whose coming out wasn’t exactly received warmly, left of her own accord and might not be happy to see her self-styled rescuers.

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Currently in limited release ahead of its streaming premiere on Mubi next week, Akin’s followup to And Then We Danced is stirringly empathetic and powered by moving performances from Mzia Arabuli and Lucas Kankava. Lia and Achi are as odd a couple as you could imagine, and though Crossing could hardly be called a buddy comedy, Akin finds moments of much-needed levity in their tense dynamic.

Achi’s interests are earthly and immediate — escaping the drudgery of his home life and finding a job — whereas Lia’s quest feels existential: “I have no future and thus no plans,” she tells him when asked what she intends to do if and when they find Tekla. “I’m just here until I’m not.” For how heavy moments like this are, to say nothing of the inherently somber premise, the film never feels despairing or falsely uplifting.

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Akin offers a ground-level view of his cosmopolitan setting, with a focus on tucked-away corners that even some locals might not be used to seeing. (Fans of Istanbul’s world-famous street cats will be pleased to see some of them here; anyone wanting more would do well to watch the documentary Kedi.) Lia and Achi are very much outsiders here, but not in a way they seem to mind — Crossing is, among other things, an ode to immersing yourself in a new environment and not letting the initial discomfort prevent you from exploring a different side of yourself.

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Lia at times seems ambivalent about the niece she hasn’t seen in years, but never misgenders or deadnames her — a sign, perhaps, that absence has made the heart grow more accepting. Georgian and Turkish are both gender-neutral languages, an intertitle tells us as the film begins, but that doesn’t mean their societies are. Lia never goes into detail on the subject of Tekla’s transition or how it was received, only briefly alluding to the fear that her family would be judged in their small village — a fear that apparently outweighed concerns for Tekla herself. “This is the life she chose?” Lia asks upon first entering a makeshift trans neighborhood. Ashi, decades younger and less beholden to the old ways, responds in kind: “I hardly think it was a choice.”

The film never feels despairing or falsely uplifting.

Rather than judge his characters for their shortcomings, Akin roots for them at every turn. That includes the third point on the film’s triangle: Evrim, a soon-to-be lawyer advocating for fellow members of the trans community whose journey through the city would appear to mirror Tekla’s. Self-assured in a way that neither Lia nor Ashi are, she’s a reminder that everyone’s path is different and what matters most is to continue forging it.

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“It seems Istanbul is a place where people go to disappear,” Lia says in a pivotal scene. She’s more right than she knows, and hits upon one of the film’s central points: Not everyone who goes missing wants to be found, especially if they believe that those who might come looking for them never saw them in the first place.