"…One of the main reasons for the upsurge on interest in Turkey’s art cinema is Zeki Demirkubuz, an intense young auteur who created a minor buzz last year when two of his films screened at Cannes. Given his hellish past as a political prisoner, it’s no surprise that Demirkubuz favors silent, dark interiors; harsh existential themes; and shots of his actors gazing emptily through open doorways and windows, as if from chambers of solitude." Damon Smith, Boston Globe, 2003.

"Pitched halfway between a drama and a black comedy, the film benefits hugely from the performances of its leads, with both Orcin and Tokus terrific as the even-tempered clerk and his loving but faithless wife. Even a long philosophical discussion near the end between Musa and the prison governor, who can't comprehend the former's lack of anger, has a blackly comic edge...". Derek Elley, Variety, 2002.

"Take the ennui of Camus, the soul of Bresson and the unwavering gaze of Kiarostami and you might get something like Zeki Demirkubuz's Fate. The first part of a trilogy from the Turkish director, Fate is almost a literal rendition of Camus' The Outsider translated to present-day Istanbul. Its faithful depiction of 1950s French existential angst helped it become one of the successes of this year's Cannes festival." Dan Gleister, The Guardian, 2002.

"In his films, Zeki Demirkubuz dives recklessly into the fundamental contradictions of life without being afraid of falling into deep and basic controversies. He passionately searches for his human-ness in the darkness. Yazgı (Fate, 2001), the first film in his trilogy “Tales of Darkness,” offers a controversial interpretation of Albert Camus’s literary classic of alienation, The Stranger. The power of Fate comes from Demirkubuz’s confrontation with his audience’s expectations, both morally and cinematically. Demirkubuz persistently escapes the clichés of psychologically-oriented films. While escaping them, he uses seemingly under-elaborated visual aesthetics that never overwhelm his effective storytelling, but instead nourish it. In the end, it is impossible not to react to what he does in Fate. He thrives on the fundamental question of what is beyond good and evil, and urges the audience to look into their own darkness through his controversial, archetypal individual of modernity, coming this time not from France but from Turkey." Ovul Durmusoglu, Mental Minefields: The Dark Tales of Zeki Demirkubuz, 2007