Set in a mountain village on Turkey’s Black Sea coast, Decaying Roots examines how changes in agricultural practice have affected the rural landscape as well as the relationship between the local population and the land on which they live. Snippets of interviews with local residents reveal how a romanticized concept of ‘land’ that once colored the relationship between them and their surroundings has been replaced by a more businesslike concept of ‘land use’. As more and more wilderness is tamed and transformed into cultivated tea plantations, concepts of love, respect and loyalty are also transformed. In a lyrical cinematic language, Decaying Roots highlights the emotional trauma that results from the loss of natural habitat and the simultaneous loss of socio-cultural traditions and values.