Dead Dogs Don't Bite (2026)
Nuri Cihan Özdoğan's debut feature Dead Dogs Don't Bite takes its premise more or less straight from the headlines. After China stopped accepting the world's plastic waste in 2018, Turkey became one of the biggest destinations for Europe's discarded rubbish, and the environmental and health fallout has been real and well documented. The film had its UK premiere at the Raindance Film Festival 2026.
From that starting point, Özdoğan builds a near-future where the trade has curdled into something toxic and criminal. It is an ambitious swing for a first feature, and one that begins as bleak eco-drama before turning into something closer to a crime thriller.
Nuri Cihan Özdoğan's directorial debut, Dead Dogs Don't Bite (2026), was watched as part of my press run at the Raindance Film Festival 2026, and I have to say, the ambition behind it is genuinely commendable.
Set in a gritty, dystopian near-future where Turkey is importing mountains of rubbish from across Europe under the guise of recycling, the film tackles a highly relevant and pressing socio-environmental issue. The non-recyclable waste is poisoning the soil and causing a spike in cancer rates, creating a bleak, toxic backdrop that perfectly mirrors the moral decay of the illegal waste trade. It's a brilliant, timely premise that immediately grabs your attention and roots the story in a very real, modern crisis.
What's really interesting is how the narrative pivots as it goes along. It kicks off as this heavy, atmospheric eco-drama about two inseparable friends whose bond is slowly rotting away alongside the toxic muck they're forced to dump, but it eventually shifts gears into a proper action crime flick. For a first-time feature, Özdoğan does a fair job of keeping the wheels on. The cinematography is perfectly serviceable, capturing the grimy, polluted landscapes with a solid, gritty eye, and the acting across the board is fine, grounding the criminal underworld in a believable, lived-in reality that makes the stakes feel personal.
If there's one area where the film trips over its own shoelaces, it's the script. The dialogue is way too drawn out and suffers from a frustrating habit of repeating itself. Far too often, the characters are just verbally describing exactly what we're already seeing on screen, rather than using their words to actually push the plot forward or deepen the emotional stakes. It's a bit of a missed opportunity to tighten up the pacing and trust the visual storytelling a bit more.
Still, when you look at the big picture, Dead Dogs Don't Bite is a perfectly average, highly watchable action entry that shows real promise.
It might not be a groundbreaking masterpiece, but as a debut feature tackling a vital environmental crisis with a decent dose of crime-thriller grit, Özdoğan has definitely got a future in the game.
Not everything I see at a festival is going to floor me, and that is part of the job too. Dead Dogs Don't Bite did not quite come together for me, but the ideas and the ambition are real, and Özdoğan is clearly a film-maker worth keeping an eye on. I will be curious to see what he does with a tighter script next time.
Reviewed from a Raindance Film Festival 2026 press screener.
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More from Raindance Film Festival: 1001 Frames (2025), Summer School, 2001 (2025), My Daughter's Hair (2025), Nameless (2026), Silent Rebellion (2025)
More from the 2020s: Look Back (2024), The Whale (2022), All That's Left of You (2025)
