İstanbul’s film buffs are being treated to a weeklong fiesta of documentaries from 24 countries through next Thursday, thanks to the 13th İstanbul International 1001 Documentary Film Festival, which got under way on Friday.
The festival, organized by the Association of Documentary Filmmakers in Turkey (BSB), is presenting a total of 68 films in admission free showings at the Muammer Karaca Theater, the Tarık Zafer Tunaya Cultural Center and the Goethe Institut on the European side, and at the Nazım Hikmet Cultural Center in Kadıköy.
Among the 68 titles featured, 20 are from Turkey with the rest coming from a diverse set of countries, including Germany, Iran, Argentina, India, China, Ireland, France and the US, the Anatolia news agency reported this week.
This year’s festival will introduce a special section called the Cinema Laboratory, which is a series of seminars on novel, experimental approaches in filmmaking. Under the supervision of Ersan Ocak, the seminars will not solely focus on documentary filmmaking, but also on the entire cinema industry, Anatolia said.
The various sections in this year’s festival are “Work and Labor,” “Of Hard Times,” “Modern Times,” “Of Men and Women,” “Away from Home,” “Art and Passion” and “Environment.” The majority of the films included in this year’s lineup were produced in the past two years, and most of them will be shown in Turkey for the first time, the organizers said.