Tag: Istanbul Film Festival

  • theartsdesk in Istanbul: City on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown?

    theartsdesk in Istanbul: City on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown?

    The arts and the economy might be prospering, but critics fear old Istanbul is turning into a new Dubai

    by Sheila JohnstonSunday, 21 April 2013

    Late on a spring Friday evening, İstiklal Caddesi, the main shopping thoroughfare in Istanbul’s Beyoğlu district, exudes all the delicious traditional Turkish aromas: roasting chestnuts, fierce black coffee, döner grills and simit, İstanbul’s bagel, still selling like hot cakes way after midnight. Most of all, though, milling with the crowd, you are struck by something else, something less familiar these days, in Europe anyway: the smell of money.

    While the old economies are on their knees, Turkey has been booming: 9.2 percent growth in GDP in 2010, 8.5 percent in 2012. Last year the motor spluttered and stalled – only 2.2 percent growth – but is still chugging along nicely enough.

    Old and new: a lottery ticket seller stands guard by the Swatch shop on Istanbul's İstiklal CaddesiSince I last visited the city seven years ago, the skyline has been transfigured (many say, disfigured) with shiny new high-rise buildings. İstiklal Caddesi is lined with cash dispensers every few metres, with more lines of people eager to use them. (Pictured right: a lottery ticket seller stands guard by the Swatch shop on İstiklal Caddesi)

    In 2010 Istanbul was a European City of Culture. It was a strategic move designed partly to boost Turkey’s application to join the European Union. Decades after making that bid, the country’s still waiting. Though, frankly, joining the Eurozone is looking less attractive by the minute.

    “The economy is thriving here and the arts are too. Private museums and galleries are opening one after the other,” observes Azize Tan, (pictured below left), the Director of the Istanbul Film Festival which, now in its 32nd year, has bravely kept afloat through foul weather and fair: the current edition, just finished, attracted guests including Peter Weir, Patricia Arquette, Carlos Reygadas and Bille August.

    Azize Tan, Director the of Istanbul Film FestivalRun under the aegis of the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts, which also stages theatre, music and art events throughout the year, its principal sponsor today is Akbank, whose spacious four-floor gallery at the top end of İstiklal Caddesi is the festival’s HQ (sponsors are the main source of the festival’s funding; it receives nothing from the city).

    So it’s the banks and rich private patrons that are investing in the arts, specifically art: Istanbul boasts around 150 galleries, two biennials — one for design and one for art — and several contemporary art fairs. The following day I wander down İstiklal Caddesi to see SALT, an opulent, cavernous building owned by Garanti Bank with a walk-in cinema, bookshop, tearoom and three floors of exhibition space, currently dedicated to a show about the notorious 1977 Labour Day massacre in Istanbul, at which 33 people died.

    A second SALT venue in Istanbul is twice as large again and there is a third outlet in Ankara. “We have a vibrant art scene,” says Elif Obdan, who works with Tan at the Foundation. “But to make it sustainable there are things to do. Everyone wants to visit Istanbul.” She pauses. “It’s different when you live here, though.”

    For critics are talking darkly of bubbles, of boom and bust, of unchecked speculation that will swallow up old Istanbul and turn it into a new Las Vegas, Disneyland, Dubai. Today the perception is that while 2010 did prompt some much needed restoration programmes, but that ephemeral year in the spotlight was, overall, a disappointment.

    “We are growing too fast and sometimes hasty decisions are being made. There’s no state control and no transparency,” Tan says. “I’m not against change. But we do need to talk about what’s going on. It’s not always the point to have something new. In 10 years’ time nothing will survive.”

    The Demiroren shopping mall IstanbulAlso on İstiklal Caddesi, security personnel guard the entrance to the vast, Demirören shopping mall. Two listed historical buildings were razed in 2010 to make way for the bling, pseudo-classical edifice which towers over its surroundings and whichMilliyet newspaper described as “a hormone-filled pumpkin”. The manoeuvring, deceptions and extended scandal around the project, are all chronicled in detail here.

    Turn right after you pass Demirören and you enter a dark, dingy back alley strewn with dust and builder’s rubble. This is Yeşilçam Sokağı, once known as the Turkish Hollywood. Production houses were based here, and cinemas; Kemal Atatürk went to the movies there. It was formerly the heart of the Film Festival. Now it’s at the centre of Istanbul’s latest arts controversy.

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  • Postcard: Istanbul

    Postcard: Istanbul

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    The Istanbul Film Festival team and celebrity guests joined a protest against the demolition of the Emek movie theatre. Photo: Maria Giovanna Vagenas

    Stretching along both sides of the Bosphorus, the cosmopolitan Turkish city of Istanbul is a mesmerising metropolis. A bridge between Europe and Asia, a melting pot of cultures and peoples, it is steeped in tradition but also ever growing – with both historic monuments and construction sites shaping its skyline.

    Amid this vitality and diversity, the 32nd edition of the Istanbul Film Festival (IFF) took place between March 30 and April 14, treating its attendees to 500 screenings of 226 films from around the world.

    With a reputation for having an open-minded, intellectually curious, thought-provoking and engaged approach to cinema, the festival has a distinctive character and profile.

    Azize Tan, the festival’s director for the past seven years, is clear about the Istanbul Film Festival’s identity. “IFF is not a red-carpet festival but a feast for the public; a platform with an open, friendly atmosphere where people can talk about the films and celebrate them together with our guest directors, who are accessible and close to the audience,” she says.

    With 15 thematic sections, the festival continued to promote emerging talents and new ideas, and showcase both cinematic history and cinema’s strong link to the arts.

    Among this year’s highlights were a retrospective programme of the works of Mexican filmmaker Carlos Reygadas along with a memorable master class that he conducted. There were also stimulating talks from Australian auteur Peter Weir – who presided over the Golden Tulip International Competition’s jury – and the Greek-born, naturalised French filmmaker, Costa Gavras.

    The Turkish cinema 2012-2013 section comprised 30 new works (features, documentaries and shorts) and was very much the core of the event. Human relationships, family bonds, and the quest for happiness were threads running through most of the films.

    The IFF’s programme also highlighted politically, socially and culturally committed films. And the activism and civil participation were not confined to the screen: a demonstration on the central Istiklal Avenue against the demolition of the old Emek movie theatre, the heart of the festival for many years and a symbol of the fight against gentrification, was high on the agenda, with Tan and her team turning out to protest together with festival guests including Gavras.

    The struggle to save the historic Istanbul landmark dominated the closing ceremony too, and made it reminiscent of a good-humoured political rally. The presentation of the Golden Tulip awards took place amid a sea of slogans and placards, making for touching, even heart-warming, scenes.

    What Richard Did won the international competition. A fine psychologically introspective portrait of the quietly devastating downfall of an Irish golden boy, Lenny Abrahamson’s adaptation of a Kevin Power novel offers a glimpse into the abyss of the human soul.

    With its fresh, idiosyncratic approach to everyday life in a small provincial city, Thou Gild’st the Even by Onur Ünlü won the Golden Tulip in the national category. Shot in black and white, and gently shifting from reality into an imaginary, slightly absurd world, the Turkish filmmaker stunningly describes an ordinary population with extraordinary talents.

    Set in the upper middle-class milieu of Istanbul, Lifelong, a stylish psychological drama about a couple trapped in a hollow relationship but unable to break up, won Asli Özge the award for best director.

    Deniz Akçay Katiksiz took the best debut film award with Nobody’s Home. A mature work with a strong autobiographical touch, it is a sharply observed study of the conflict caused by the inability to communicate between four family members following the death of the father.

    Ercan Kesal won the best actor award for his role in Mahmut Fazil Coskun’s humorous melodrama about ageing, Yozgat Blues.

    The human rights competition prize went to The Patience Stone by Atiq Rahimi.

  • Yozgat Blues: Istanbul Review – The Hollywood Reporter

    Yozgat Blues: Istanbul Review – The Hollywood Reporter

    Yozgat Blues: Istanbul Review

    12:50 PM PDT 4/14/2013 by Stephen Farber

    yozgat_blues_poster

    This slice of Turkish life meanders but achieves some pungent moments.

    Istanbul Film Festival

    Cast

    Ercan Kesal, Ayca Damgaci, Tansu Bicer

    Director

    Mahmut Fazil Coskun

    Mahmut Fazil Coskun’s film, which received its world premiere in Istanbul, follows a city slicker forced to relocate to the provinces.

    The story of a city slicker forced to relocate to the provinces has been retold many times, in many different countries. Yozgat Blues, one of the Turkish movies receiving its world premiere at the Istanbul Film Festival, discovers a tasty variation on this well worn theme.  Yuvaz (Ercan Kesal) is a music teacher in Istanbul who also performs occasionally as a musician. When a performing gig is offered to him in a city in the middle of the country, he decides to seize the opportunity, even though he is reluctant to trade the stimulations of the big city for life in a more remote outpost.

    Nothing quite works out as he hopes, but he does make some satisfying human connections in the town of Yozgat. Even though the story is universal, the details are probably too Anatolian to imagine much of a release for this movie outside Turkey. But it will win some nice reviews when it plays at other festivals around the world.

    Although Yuvaz is the protagonist, the film turns out to be a group portrait of half a dozen people whose lives intersect with his in Yozgat. Nese (Ayca Damgaci), his singing partner, develops an attachment to Sabri (Tansu Bicer), the barber who helps the balding Yuvaz with the toupee he wears while performing. The nightclub owner and a local radio host also become part of the ensemble as this shaggy dog tale unfolds. Istanbul audiences roared at droll comic touches that probably won’t translate as well to audiences in other parts of the world. But the characters and relationships are incisively drawn, and the film’s deadpan sense of humor tickles.

    One disappointment of the movie is that it relies heavily on closeups and gives us very little of the atmosphere in this section of the country. (Yozgat seems to be the Turkish equivalent of Tulsa or Des Moines.) That may be the point the director was trying to make, but the film still could have benefited from a sharper sense of the locale. In addition, the humor and pathos are both a little too low-key to register vividly. On the other hand, the performers make the most of the wry material. Kesal gives a sympathetic performance as Yuvaz, and the plump but attractive Damgaci plays nicely against Hollywood images of women. Bicer is equally engaging as the sheltered barber who still lives with his grandmother. At the beginning he has been set up on a date with a religious Muslim woman who is not as demure as her traditional garb suggests. She proves to be far too opinionated for Sabri, and he forges an easier connection with Nese, though this frustrates Yuvaz’s unspoken hopes for their relationship.

    The nightclub scenes capture the humiliations of performers forced to entertain bored audiences, and Yuvaz’s financial difficulties will resonate with aspiring actors or singers anywhere in the world. While some of the characters achieve a happy ending that they were not expecting, Yuvaz’s future is far more precarious. Despite its uneven script and direction, Yozgat Blues succeeds in capturing a bittersweet mood that will haunt viewers.

    Venue: Istanbul Film Festival.

    Cast: Ercan Kesal, Ayca Damgaci, Tansu Bicer, Nadir Saribacak, Kevork Malikyan.

    Director: Mahmut Fazil Coskun.

    Screenwriters: Tarik Tufan, Mahmut Fazil Coskun.

    Producer: Halil Kardas.

    Executive producer: Catharina Schreckenberg.

    Director of photography: Baris Ozbicer.

    Art director: Osman Ozcan.

    Editor: Cicek Kahraman.

    No rating, 96 minutes.

    via Yozgat Blues: Istanbul Review – The Hollywood Reporter.

  • Film about Armenian Istanbul Premieres in Turkey

    Film about Armenian Istanbul Premieres in Turkey

    “I Left My Shoes in Istanbul,” a documentary film by Beirut-based writer and director Nigol Bezjian, was screened at the Istanbul Independent Film Festival in February. The film chronicles the journey of a Lebanese-born Armenian poet through his first visit to the city, and the discovery of his cultural roots. It first premiered at the Golden Apricot Film Festival in Yerevan last summer, and finally made its way to the titular city of Istanbul.

    A scene from the film

    In an interview with the Armenian Weekly, Bezjian talks about the premiere in Istanbul and other projects to come.

    Lilly Torosyan—When and where did the film premiere?

    Nigol Bezjian—I first showed the film at the Golden Apricot Yerevan International Film Festival in July 2012. It was my first time seeing the film on a big screen with an audience. I had to make some changes, adjustments, and corrections. The newly completed version premiered in Istanbul last February during the festival. The screening had a full house with an audience of nearly 650 people in the Cinemaximum 4, the largest movie theatre in Istanbul. There was a gathering of Armenians, Turks, Kurds, Alevis, Islamists, and who knows who else!

    LT—How did the audience react to the film?

    NB—I heard the audience reacting to the film during the screening, either by humming along with the music, laughing at funny scenes, or at times whispering to each other. And then there was the loud applause of a full house at the end credits. I knew the film had won over the audience.

    I had no idea what to expect. In fact, I had no feelings at all, but at the end of the film when I walked in front of the audience for the Q&A, I found myself in a very emotional state—almost speechless. I had never experienced this sort of impassioned moment at any of my previous film showings. They were seconds that seemed to be infinitely expanding along a myriad of thoughts that covered the tense of times. It was an insurmountable instant.

    LT—You have another project that revolves around Istanbul. Tell us a little bit about that.

    NB—I have completed one other film, “Milk, Carnation, and a Godly Song,” about the literal legacy of Daniel Varoujan. The film is three hours long and covers the development of the Armenian mind from pagan times to Daniel Varoujan, with the film ending in Istanbul on April 24, 2010. I am trying to start showing this film now, along with “I Left My Shoes in Istanbul.”

    LT—Any other projects in the works that you would like to share?

    NB—At the moment, I am excited to prepare myself for a new film that has to do with the 13th-century Persian poet and Sufi mystic Rumi. I had no idea that one day I would be in Istanbul making a film and showing it there, and now this invitation by the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program is giving me the opportunity to go to Konya and Cappadocia. Suddenly, I have a lot to do!

    via Film about Armenian Istanbul Premieres in Turkey | Armenian Weekly.

  • Istanbul Film Festival to promote wide spectrum of works

    Istanbul Film Festival to promote wide spectrum of works

    ISTANBUL, Turkey, March 30 (Xinhua) — The 32nd Istanbul Film Festival started here on Saturday with more than 200 films in 20 categories to be screened in the coming two weeks.

    The festival promotes a wide spectrum of selections, from features, classics, works of master directors to films that premiered at Sundance in January and at Berlinale in February.

    The festival will also show documentaries and children’s films as well as movies vying for the Golden Tulip and FACE competitions.

    The program includes a debut section, “Stories of Women,” and ” From Literature to the Silver Screen,” which returned to the event after a long break.

    A special section, “Am I Not a Citizen,” in collaboration with the 13th Istanbul Biennial set to start in September, and “Reality is a Miracle: Carlos Reygadas” will also be held.

    The opening ceremony of the festival was held at the Lutfi Kirdar Convention and Exhibition Center on Friday evening with the participation of more than 2,000 people. Following the ceremony, the opening film “I’m So Excited” by Pedro Almodovar was screened.

    Editor: Tang Danlu

    via Istanbul Film Festival to promote wide spectrum of works – Xinhua | English.news.cn.

  • IF Istanbul Film Festival invites filmmakers to Sundance Labs

    IF Istanbul Film Festival invites filmmakers to Sundance Labs

    if film festivalIf Istanbul Independent Film Festival’s collaboration with the Sundance Institute for screenwriting workshops comes with a more extensive program this year. Guests evaluate the process for the Hürriyet Daily News

    In its second year IF IstanbulIndependent Film Festival’s collaboration with the Sundance Institute for screenwriting workshops comes with a more elaborate program under the title of Sundance Labs.

    Alesia Walton, associate director of the Feature Film Program at the Sundance Institute, who is also to give a panel on screenwriting, directors’ labs and future film programs of the institute in the second day of Sundance Labs workshop program, told the Hürriyet Daily News she hoped the program would turn into a self-sustaining body, and therefore they were reinforcing the infrastructure of what they began last year.

    “Our first year of this program was wonderful and unique, in that it combined a mini screenwriter’s lab, screenwriting panel, a Film Forward screening series and a case study of a previous lab project: Amreeka. We were fortunate to have a group of diverse, smart advisors and an inaugural class of writing/directing fellows who represented a wide variety of Turkish filmmakers, selected by our partners at IF,” she said, adding although it took a long time to gain a deep understanding of a culture and its history, particularly a place as rich, vibrant and complex as Turkey, she believed the lab offered an unusually insightful and personal point of entry via the projects of the filmmakers and the conversations surrounding their work.

    “All of our programs have changed a great deal over time, and with each year we expect that this program will grow and eventually take on an evolving identity and form. This will be determined by the place’s individual culture and the specific needs of the local film world, and we look forward to seeing how this will take shape in subsequent years,” she said.

    ‘Write the film in your heart’

    The first event of the Sundance Labs will be a screenwriting panel with the participation of renowned independent filmmakers Audrey Wells, Athina Rachel Tsangiri and other Sundance experts. On the third day of the program Sally El Hosaini will attend the Sundance Case Study Lab with her film “My Brother the Devil,” which has also undergone the Sundance Lab process.

    Speaking to the Daily News, El Hosaini said what impressed her most about the Sundance Institute Labs was the way they were structured around individual needs. “The labs are basically a series of one-on-one meetings with creative advisors. But these advisors don’t force their views upon you or hold the answers to making your script better. Screenwriting is too subjective for black and white answers anyway. Instead the sessions were more of an informal discussion. An opportunity for you to go deeper into yourself and to examine the reasons you wrote what you did and a chance for you to hold a mirror up to your script, yourself and your own process. This journey of self examination was incredibly illuminating.”

    She added that it was always up to the participant to decide what direction he or she wanted to take things. “It does not matter whether you agree or disagree with a certain creative advisor. The more open you are to this kind of process the more you get out of it. Ultimately, we are each on our own paths; there is no right or wrong route. The labs helped me focus my project and to really understand what story I wanted to tell and why. I was able to get rid of the unnecessary elements and achieve more depth in the areas I wanted to dig deeper into,” she said.

    On being asked what she would suggest to future participants of the filmmaking workshops in Turkey within the scope of If Istanbul, El Hosaini said, “Write the film that’s in your heart. The story that you’re most passionate about and that you need to see brought to life. That’s the only secret.”

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Hürriyet Daily News