ISTABUL FILM FESTIVAL
33rd ISTANBUL FILM FESTIVAL
Organised by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV) and supported by AKBANK for the 10th time, the Istanbul Film Festival’s programme is plentiful once again. Reaching an audience of approximately 150 thousand every year, the Istanbul Film Festival, Turkey’s biggest cinematic event, commences its 33rd run on 5 April, 2014, and finished on 20 April, 2014.
Supported by Akbank for the 10th time, the 33rd Istanbul Film Festival will take place between 5-20 April. Protecting its leading position not only with the quality and variety of the films within the programme, but also with its high number of participants, the Istanbul Film Festival will once again not only provide cinephiles with over 200 films in over 20 categories, but also with panels, workshops, and master classes with expert film makers for two full weeks.
Followers of the festival will be watching films ranging from 2013 and 2014’s quality productions to unforgettable film classics, from expert directors’ masterpieces to films premiering at the Sundance and Berlin festivals, and from documentaries to children’s films. Besides the festivals now classic categories, the festival will also garner interest with its new categories specific to 2014. “What A Pair,” prepared by film critics Fatih Özgüven and Engin Ertan, academicians Selim Eyüboğlu and Umut Tümay Arslan, as well as the Istanbul Film Festival Director Azize Tan in celebration of the 100th year of Turkish cinema, “Polish Experimental Animation” organised as part of the 2014 cultural programme celebrating 600 years of diplomatic relations between Turkey and Poland, and “MK2-40 Years,” in honour of the 40th year of the production company MK2 established by Marin Karmitz, are among this year’s exciting projects…
One of Russian cinema’s most important representatives, whose name is frequently remembered alongside Tarkovsky even though he’s only made six films, Aleksey Guerman’s entire filmography will be screening as part of the festival. All of the restored films from Yanaki and Milton Manaki, the Balkans’ first filmmakers, will be screening at the festival as part of the 100th year of Turkish cinema. The ninth edition of the Meetings on the Bridge, the festival’s industry section, which brings together Turkish film-makers and international professionals, will also be taking place.
The programme for the 33rd Istanbul Film Festival was announced to the press by İKSV General Director Görgün Taner, Akbank Board Member and CEO Hakan Binbaşgil and Istanbul Film Festival Director Azize Tan with a meeting held on Wednesday, 5 March at IKSV’s official accommodation sponsor Martı Istanbul Hotel.
In his opening speech, İKSV’s General Director Görgün Taner acknowledged the festival supporters and underlined that 2014 is the 100th anniversary of Turkish cinema. He added that they are proud of the contributions of the Istanbul Film Festival to the country’s cinema in this 100-year period and invited Hakan Binbaşgil, Board Member and CEO of Akbank, to make his speech. Akbank has been supporting the festival for the last 10 years.
Akbank Board Member and CEO Hakan Binbaşgil said that the Istanbul Film Festival, which has started as a film week 33 years ago with the screening of 6 feature films, has turned into a celebration of cinema and added that “this year marks the centennial birthday of Turkish cinema. We’re happy to see the current success of our country’s cinema in the 33rd year of the Istanbul Film Festival. I believe the Istanbul Film Festival has a major role in supporting the development and success of the country’s cinema which we wholeheartedly support. As Akbank, we are proud to support the film festival, which is among the most important and long-lasting art events in Turkey, for the tenth time.” Binbaşgil also said: “I would like to commemorate Şakir Eczacıbaşı, who put so much effort into creating such a festival, and whom we will remember as a leader and a guide. Moreover, I would like to thank the esteemed team of İKSV, which has contributed to culture and arts for the last 40 years and more, and to the Chairman, Mr. Bülent Eczacıbaşı.”
Taking the floor afterwards, Istanbul Film Festival Director Azize Tan relayed detailed information regarding films within the festival programme, participating guests, and events that will be taking place during the festival.
ISTANBUL FILM FESTIVAL ADVISORY BOARD
The Istanbul Film Festival Advisory Board consists of producer Zeynep Özbatur Atakan, director Semih Kaplanoğlu, and film critic Esin Küçüktepepınar. Film critic Atilla Dorsay continues to support the Istanbul Film Festival as the Honorary Member of the Advisory Board.
Directors Berke Baş and Elif Ergezen, academic, film-maker Alisa Lebow and academic Ahmet Gürata are the members of Advisory Board for Documentaries.
SPONSORS OF THE 33rd ISTANBUL FILM FESTIVAL
The 33rd Istanbul Film Festival is held with the support of more than 20 institutions. The festival is organised by great support of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Turkey. Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality and Beyoğlu Municipality continue their publicity support for the festival.
Apart from the Festival Sponsor Akbank, 6 theme sponsors support the festival:
Anadolu Efes “National Competition and Turkish Cinema”
NTV “Documentary Time with NTV”
Sabah Newspaper “From the World of Festivals”
Sinema-TV “Antidepressant”
tv2 “Midnight Madness”
Nescafé Gold “New Visions”
“Akbank Galas” supported by Akbank are shown as part of the festival.
Istanbul Film Festival brings the masterpieces of Turkish cinema by restoring them to the silver screen in its “Special Screening: Turkish Classics Revisited” section, initiated seven years ago under the sponsorship of Groupama.
In 2014, Renault will carry the guests of the Istanbul Film Festival.
The leading sponsor of all festivals of İKSV is Eczacıbaşı Holding, the Official Communications Sponsor is Vodafone, the Official Carrier is DHL, The Official Accommodation Sponsor is Martı Istanbul Hotel and the service sponsors are Zurich Sigorta, GFK, directComn Marketing Group and AGC.
FESTIVAL POSTER BY İNCİ EVİNER AND BÜLENT ERKMEN
The Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts features a new collaboration for the posters of Istanbul Festivals since last year. Artworks and handwritings of leading artists from different fields are brought together on the posters of Istanbul Festivals by graphic designer Bülent Erkmen. The poster of the 33rd Istanbul Film Festival features the drawings and handwriting of internationally renowned contemporary artist İnci Eviner, following the previous collaborations with Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Sarkis, Orhan Pamuk, Güher and Süher Pekinel, and Şahika Tekand for the posters of Istanbul Festivals.
OPENING AND CLOSING CEREMONIES
The opening ceremony of the 33rd Istanbul Film Festival will be held on Friday, 4 April to be broadcast live on NTV. Right after the ceremony, Philomena by Stephen Frears, which will be screened in Akbank Galas section, will be shown as the opening film of the festival.
The closing and awards ceremony of the 33rd Istanbul Film Festival will be held on Saturday, 19 April at Cemal Reşit Rey Concert Hall and will be broadcast live on CNN Türk and the Golden Tulips and other awards of the festival will be presented. After the ceremony, the winner of the International Competition Golden Tulip Award will be screened as the closing film of the festival.
THE FESTIVAL’S HONORARY AWARDS
This year, Polish master director Andrzej Wajda, whose films frequently touch upon notions of history, war, and human destiny will be receiving the Istanbul Film Festival Lifetime Achievement Award. Unable to travel to Istanbul due to health concerns, his award will be presented on behalf of the director to the lead actor of his film Walesa: Man Of Hope before its screening on Saturday, 12 April.
This year the Istanbul Film Festival Honorary Awards will be given to seven esteemed names.
The Istanbul Film Festival Honorary Awards will be presented at the festivals opening ceremony to screenwriter Umur Bugay, actress Sevda Ferdağ, producer Abdurrahman Keskiner, actor Eşref Kolçak, musician Attila Özdemiroğlu, and director, screenwriter and producer İrfan Tözüm, who have all dedicated years of work to Turkish cinema.
The Istanbul Film Festival will also present its Cinema Honorary Award to Marin Karmitz, the founder of the MK2, French Production Company celebrating its 40th year in popular and qualified film production. Marin Karmitz, director, producer and famous name of the independent film distribution who completed the 40th year of his cinema career in 2014, will receive the Cinema Honorary Award at the closing and awards ceremony of the festival.
GOLDEN TULIP EXCITEMENT AT THE FESTIVAL
Outstanding productions of Turkish and world cinema will again compete for the International and National Golden Tulip Competitions of the Istanbul Film Festival. The jury and audience will be able to watch the films during the second week of the festival, which will be presented with the awards at the closing and award ceremony to be held at Cemal Reşit Rey Concert Hall on Saturday, 19 April.
Interviews with the directors of the competition films conducted by Ceyda Aşar, Engin Ertan and Esin Küçüktepepınar, film critics and members of the Turkish Film Critics Association (SİYAD), can be followed on the official website of the festival, festival blog and social media channels as of March and throughout the festival.
International Golden Tulip Competition
In the “International Competition” section of the 33rd Istanbul Film Festival, 11 films dealing with themes of art and artist or literature adaptations will vie for the Golden Tulip. The International Competition Golden Tulip Award, presented in memory of Şakir Eczacıbaşı, will be supported with the 25.000 Euros award by the Eczacıbaşı Group. The director of the winning film will receive 10.000 Euros, the company which will distribute the film in Turkey will receive 10.000 Euros, and 5.000 Euros will be given to the director of the film that receives the Special Jury Award.
The 33rd Istanbul Film Festival’s Golden Tulip International Competition Jury will be headed by Iranian director Asghar Farhadi, known for his films the Oscar-winning A Separation and The Past. Alongside Farhadi, the jury will also include director Philippe Le Guay, producer and London Film School Director Lynda Myles, scriptwriter Razvan Radulescu and actress Defne Halman. Lynda Myles will also give a master class for the festival audience.
The recipient of last year’s International Golden Tulip from the jury led by Peter Weir with his film What Richard Did, Irish director Lenny Abrahamson’s latest film, Frank, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. With a cast helmed by Domhnall Gleeson, Michael Fassbender and Maggie Gyllenhaal, Frank is an unusual musical comedy. In the film, a wanna-be musician joins an eccentric band, where lead singer Frank performs without ever taking off a giant head-shaped mask. In the role of Frank, Michael Fassbender performs his own vocals in the film. Director Lenny Abrahamson will be among the festival guests.
Known for his ability to balance drama with humour, one of the brightest figures in the Icelandic film scene, Ragnar Bragason’s latest film Metalhead will be competing for the Golden Tulip. A tribute to heavy metal, this equally funny and emotional film follows a girl who grows up on a remote farm, dreaming of becoming a rock star. Director Ragnar Bragason will be coming to Istanbul in April as a guest of the festival.
A story of bravery and ambition, Tracks, starring Mia Wasikowska and Adam Driver, tells the story of Robyn Davidson’s 2700 kilometre, 9-month journey with camels from Alice Springs in the north of Australia to the west of the continent, in 1978. John Curran, known as the scriptwriter of The Killer Inside Me (2010), is the director of the film adapted from Davidson’s memoir. John Curran will also be one of the festival’s guests.
Canadian writer-director-actor Xavier Dolan’s fourth feature, a Hitchcockian psychological thriller, Tom at the Farm, is one of the highly anticipated competition films. Winner of the FIPRESCI Prize at Venice, this film is, once again, another change in genre for Dolan. Xavier Dolan’s previous film Laurence Anyways, included in the festival programme as part of MK2–40 Years, was an award-winner at Cannes.
An unusual coming of age tale and a cheerful autobiography, Les garçons et Guillaume, á table! / Me, Myself and Mum is a big screen adaptation of celebrated French stage actor Guillaume Gallienne’s long-running one-man show. The story focuses on his mother, who had three sons but always wanted a daughter, treating Guillaume like the daughter she never had, defining him as gay even before him. Playing the roles of both his younger self and his mother in the film, Gallienne toys with both gay movie clichés and coming out stories while touching upon his experiences of forming his sexual identity. Opening the Director’s Fortnight section at Cannes, the film won a total of 5 awards, including Best Film and Best Actor, at the César Awards on 28 February.
Winning the Audience Award at Thessaloniki and the Best Director and Best Actor awards at Valladolid, Papusza tells the story of the first Roma poetess Bronislawa Wajs, or as she’s better known, Papusza. Known as the “cursed poet” in Poland, Papusza’s life story resembles that of the history of the Roma community in the country. The film’s leading actress, Jowita Budnilk, will be a guest of the festival.
Daniele Luchetti, known by the festival goers for My Brother is an Only Child and La Nostra Vita, takes the audience to the ‘70s in his new semi-autobiographical film. A film aficionado, little Dario is the narrator of the journey of his dysfunctional family. According to Luchetti, Those Happy Years, which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival, is a homage to film stock and its unique smell.
Winning Best Film and Best Screenplay at the Swedish Oscar’s, the Guldbagge Awards, and winning the FIPRESCI Prize in the Horizons section at Venice in 2013, Återträffen / The Reunion is Swedish artist Anne Odell’s first film. Drawing from her experiences of being bullied in elementary school, in The Reunion Odell first stages and films a mock class reunion, then visits her real classmates to show them the film, stretching the border between fiction and reality.
Famous theatre and film director Robert Lepage, who increased his fan base with his film La Face cachée de la lune / The Far Side of the Moon at the 2005 festival, and short film director Pedro Pires have adapted one of Lepage’s theatre plays to the screen. The film adaptation of Lipsynch, Triptyque / Triptych garnered great attention at the Toronto International Film Festival, where it premiered. Highlighting Lepage’s genius of dialogue and visuals, while playing with the concepts of memory and identity, Triptyque examines the intersecting lives of a bookseller from Quebec, a German neurologist, and a jazz singer.
Premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival, Martin Provost’s Violette is a period piece starring Emmanuelle Devos and Sandrine Kiberlain. The film’s protagonist, giving her name to the film, is French novelist Violette Leduc. Leduc, one of the writers to bring issues such as female sexuality and abortion up for public discussion in France, is mostly known for her friendship with famous female author Simone de Beauvoir. Starting during the days of World War II, the film focuses on this friendship.
Blind, the feature film debut of Norwegian director Eskil Vogt, part of the writing team for Joachim Trier’s award-winning films, is a suspenseful and at times humorous drama about a woman tightly hanging on to reality, trying not to lose her mind after losing her sight. With cinematography by Thimios Bakatakis, known for his work on Dogtooth, Blind is a film not only about sight, but also about writing and loneliness, which won the Screenwriting Award at Sundance.
National Competition and Turkish Cinema
Anadolu Efes sponsors the “National Competition and Turkish Cinema” section of the Istanbul Film Festival again as in the last 27 years. In “Turkish Cinema” section of the Istanbul Film Festival, including films completed in 2013-2014 season, there will be 35 films in total under the “National Competition”, “Out of Competition” and “Documentaries” and New Turkish Cinema” sections. Also, 2014 Hisar Short Film Selection will have its premiere at the Istanbul Film Festival.
National Golden Tulip Competition
Films from Turkey, completed in 2013-2014 season will compete in the National Golden Tulip Competition. “National Competition” Jury will be headed by the prominent Turkish film director Derviş Zaim. Responsible for ARTE Foreign Acquisitions Karen Byot, Art Director of Warsaw T-Mobile New Horizons International Film Festival Joanna Lapinska, actor Nadir Sarıbacak, writer Hakan Günday are the other members of the National Golden Tulip Competition Jury. The awards will be distributed in 9 categories including Best Picture, Best Director, Special Jury Award, Best Actress, Best Actor, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Editing and Best Music.
Best Picture in the “National Competition” selected by the jury will be awarded with 150.000 TL and Best Director will be awarded with 50.000 TL. Special Jury Award supported with monetary award in 2011 for the first time will be given to the second best film again this year. Producer of the movie awarded with the Special Jury Award in memory of Onat Kutlar will be given 60.000 TL by Anadolu Efes. Best Actress and Best Actor will be awarded with 10.000 TL. The Istanbul Film Festival Golden Tulip Competition Jury will also give the Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, and Best Music awards.
This year, 10 films will be vying for Golden Tulip in National Competition of the festival before the jury. Following are the competition films including 6 Turkey premiere and 3 world premieres:
Silsile / Consequences / Ozan Açıktan
Şarkı Söyleyen Kadınlar / Singing Women / Reha Erdem
Sesime Gel / Werê denge min / Come To My Voice / Hüseyin Karabey (Turkey Premiere)
Gittiler ‘Sair ve Meçhul’ / Gone ‘The Other and The Unknown’ / (World Premiere)
Kumun Tadı / Seaburners / Melisa Önel (Turkey Premiere)
Bir Varmış Bir Yokmuş / Once Upon A Time / Kazım Öz (World Premiere)
Ben O Değilim / I Am Not Him / Tayfun Pirselimoğlu (Turkey Premiere)
Deniz Seviyesi / Things I Cannot Tell / Esra Saydam & Nisan Dağ (World Premiere)
Ayhan Hanım / Levent Semerci (World Premiere)
İtirazım Var / Let’s Sin / Onur Ünlü (World Premiere)
Out Of Competition
Şiirin Tadı / Taste of Poetry by Şavaş Baykal, Daire / Circle by Atıl İnanç, Derbuyina Ji Bihuşte / Cennetten Kovulmak / The Fall from Heaven by Ferit Karahan, Kusursuzlar / The Impeccables by Ramin Matin, Uzun Yol / Little Happiness by Nihat Seven will be shown under the “Out of Competition” section of the festival.
New Turkish Cinema
In “New Turkish Cinema” section including the first or second film of directors, Körler – Jaluziler İçin / For the Blinds by Ozan Adam, Sivil / Civilian by Levent Çetin, Şafakla Dönenler / Before Sunrise by Murat Eroğlu Asasız Musa / Mûsayê Bê Asa / Moses Without Rod by Aydın Orak, Buna Değer / Worth It by Can Oral, Nergis Hanım by Görkem Sarkan, Ana / The Mother by Ebubekir Uygur will meet with the festival audience.
Documentaries
The documentary selection by the Advisory Board for Documentaries of the festival among more than 40 submissions will be shown under “Documentaries’’ title of “Turkish Cinema’’ section.
In addition to Türkiye’de Caz / Jazz in Turkey by Batu Akyol, previously shown at the 20th Istanbul Jazz Festival, Dileğim Barış Olsun / My Wish is Peace by Kıvılcım Akay, Saklı Dil / Hidden Language by Kenan Özer, Diyar by Devrim Akkaya, 33 Yıllık Direniş-Berfo Ana / 33 Years of Resistance by Veysi Altay, Kül Kedisi Değiliz / Ain’t No Cinderellas! by Emel Çelebi, Olağan Haller / Ordinary State of Emergency by Özgür Fındık, O İklimde Kalırdı Acılar / Kêl / The Endless Grief by Cenk Örtülü and Zeynel Koç, Tepecik Hayal Okulu / A Dream School in the Steppes by Güliz Sağlam, Negri ile İstanbul’da / İstanbul Along with Negri by Burak Serbest, Fırtına Emine /Storm Emine by Özay Şahin, Yeryüzü Aşkın Yüzü Oluncaya Dek… by Reyan Tuvi… and Uzak / Distant by Ahmet Yurtkur will be screened for the first time in the Istanbul Film Festival.
In Memoriam of Seyfi Teoman: Seyfi Teoman Best Debut Film Prize
The Istanbul Film Festival will present an award in memoriam of director and producer Seyfi Teoman, who passed away at a young age. All the debut films from Turkey in the International and National Golden Tulip Competitions, “Out of Competition” and “New Turkish Cinema” sections under the “Turkish Cinema” section as well as the films in the “Human Rights in Cinema” section will be eligible for the Seyfi Teoman Best Debut Film Prize.
Director of the film awarded with the Seyfi Teoman Best Debut Film Prize will be presented
30,000 TL bestowed by Cem Yılmaz via CMYLMZ Fikirsanat. The award, initiated last year, will be sponsored by Cem Yılmaz for five years.
The jury of the Seyfi Teoman Best Debut Film Prize consists of Jan Ole Gerster, participant of the festival last year with his film Oh Boy, actor Taner Birsel and director Seren Yüce.
Seyfi Teoman was awarded for films either directed or produced by him with a number of awards both in the Istanbul Film Festival and other important festivals of the world. First film directed by Teoman, Tatil Kitabı / Summer Book was awarded the Best Film of the Istanbul Film Festival National Golden Tulip Competition. His second film Bizim Büyük Çaresizliğimiz / Our Grand Despair was competed in 61st Berlin Film Festival, in Istanbul both for the National and International Competitions and awarded with Special Jury Prize in the International Golden Tulip Competition. Tepenin Ardı / Beyond the Hill co-produced by Teoman and directed by Emin Alper was awarded the Best Film Award in the National Golden Tulip Competition last year. Seyfi Teoman passed away on 8 May 2012 after a three-week-long intensive care due to a traffic accident he had on 16 April after he was presented with the award for Tepenin Ardı / Beyond the Hill as the producer in 2012 at Lütfi Kırdar Convention Hall. The Istanbul Film Festival will continue commemorating Seyfi Teoman with the Best First Feature Film Award.
FIPRESCI Award
The International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI) will give its awards in the Istanbul Film Festival as in the previous years. One movie from the International Competition and one movie from the National Competition will receive the FIPRESCI Award. The FIPRESCI jury will be headed by Nando Salvá from Spain and will have Heike-Melba Fendel from Germany, Angelo Mitchievici from Romania, Amal Al Gamal from Egypt and Janet Barış and Murat Emir Eren from Turkey.
Radikal Newspaper People’s Choice Award
As in previous years, Radikal Newspaper, as one of the media sponsors of İKSV, will present a film from both National and International Competitions with the Radikal People’s Choice Award. The festival audience will submit their online votes via the terminals set up at festival movie theatres to determine the people’s choice, and lucky participants will be winning awards. The winner of the grand prize will be travelling to the Thessaloniki Film Festival as the guest of Radikal Newspaper.
Human Rights in Cinema: The Film Award of Council of Europe FACE
FACE – The Film Award of the Council of Europe, which was established eight years ago and only given at the Istanbul Film Festival, continues to be awarded with the support of the Council of Europe. The FACE Award will be presented to one of the films screened at “Human Rights in Cinema” section, which raises public consciousness and sensitivity to human rights related issues. In the “Human Rights in Cinema” section with 10 films, a representative from the Council of Europe will present the 10.000 Euros monetary prize to the director of the winning film at the Closing Ceremony of the 33rd Istanbul Film Festival. Eurimages Fund of the Council of Europe supporting co-production, distribution, and presentation of cinema is a partner to the FACE Award.
Atiq Rahimi, the winner of last year’s FACE Award in the Human Rights in Cinema competition with his film Syngue Sabour / The Patience Stone, will be head of the FACE Jury. The jury will also include
Executive Director of Eurimages Roberto Olla, adviser to the Secretary General and Deputy Secretary General of the Council of Europe Leyla Kayacık and journalist-writer Özgür Mumcu.
Ahmad Abdalla’s Microphone, winner the Golden Tulip at the 30th Istanbul Film Festival, had hinted the build-up of despair and rage of the youth, who would later take part in Egypt’s revolution. Set in Cairo’s poor neighbourhoods, Farsh wa ghata / Rags and Tatters picks up where Microphone ended four years ago, and centres on one man, a prisoner who along with dozens of others in jail escapes amidst the 2011 Tahrir Square demonstrations. Rags and Tatters has multiple stories and character lines without any spoken dialogue. Director Ahmad Abdalla will be in Istanbul at the festival.
German director Maria Binder’s TransX Istanbul is a documentary following Ebru K., a trans-woman from Istanbul who has been an active defender of human rights, especially for LGBTIQ individuals, for the past 25 years. Hoping to change Turkish society in the long run, a witty and self-deprecating Ebru meets the director’s mother, and together, they decide to open a nursing home for trans individuals. While observing Ebru K., TransX Istanbul, a fairly personal documentary, also questions the legal and social standing of LGBTIQ individuals.
Habibi bistanan and al bahar / My Love Awaits Me by the Sea is a poetic documentary narrating the story of the director Mais Darwazah, who follows a lover whom she has never met, Hasan, on a first time journey back to her homeland of Palestine. Dealing with concepts of love, place, and utopia, the film also questions reality with its fairy-tale-like quality. Director Mais Darwazah will be in Istanbul during the festival.
Ai Weiwei: the Fake Case focuses on the world-famous Chinese artist who has fought for human rights his whole life, Ai Wei Wei, and his life philosophy, political views, struggle for human rights, and stance against government pressure. In 2011, after 81 days of solitary detention Ai Weiwei was released to house arrest. 18 cameras are now monitoring his home, and police agents follow his every move. The film’s director
Andreas Johnsen will be among the festival’s guests coming to Istanbul this year.
With no dialogue and an aesthetic akin to silent cinema, Maximón Monihan’s inventive debut feature La voz de los silenciados / The Voice of the Voiceless is based on real events and utilises amateur actors in leading roles. The film follows Olga, a young girl on her way to New York from Central America, who thinks she is going to a school where deaf and mute kids study. However, once in New York, she finds herself in the hands of a merciless gang among a group of similarly deceived individuals, is subjected to physical and psychological torture, and is forced to beg. With a modern sound design that’s almost completely silent, the film won the Young Critics Jury Award for Best Film at the Mumbai Film Festival. Director Maximón Monihan will be among the festival’s guests this year.
Nominated for the Best Film in A Foreign Language category at the Oscars and winner of the Un Certain Regard Award at Cannes, as well as the Best Documentary Award at FICFA and Jerusalem, L’Image Manquante / The Missing Picture is at once a fascinating, haunting and shocking film. The film re-enacts the Khmer Rouge’s nightmarish rule over Cambodia in the 1970s with archival footage and small clay figures. The Khmer Rouge forced director Rithy Panh and his family from their home in 1975 when he was a boy, and in his most personal film to date, he tells a unique story based on his own life that is part memoir, part indictment and part history lesson.
Recipient of the A Certain Talent Prize at Cannes for its entire cast, major awards in Zurich, Mumbai, and Thessaloniki, as well as the Best Director and Audience Award at Thessaloniki, Diego Quemada-Diaz’s debut feature film La jaula de oro / Golden Cage tells a story constructed from the testimony of hundreds of migrants. According to its director, this poetic road story, following three teenagers from the slums of Guatemala who travel to the US in search of a better life, is “a journey offering reflection on the borders that divide nations, a journey towards awareness of what separates us as human beings.”
Georgian director Zaza Urushadze’s latest film Mandariinid / Tangerines deals with notions of war, immigration, and homeland. With the Russo-Georgian war in 1992, most Estonians living in Georgia left the country for their homeland. When Ivo and Margus, who have decided not to leave their country, come across a Chechen and a Georgian wounded soldier on their land, they decide to take them both in.
Belgian director Jan Verheyen’s 12th film Het Vonnis / The Verdict, starts with the assertion that there is no such thing as justice and that people have limits. Following a man who decides to take matters into his own hands after his wife’s murderer is set free due to holes within the justice system, The Verdict won the award for Best Director at the Montreal Film Festival.
Part of the 2010 Golden Tulip jury, director Jasmila Zbanic’s English-language debut For Those Who Can Tell No Tales premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. Years after the war has long ended, Australian artist Kym Vercoe travels to the Bosnian-Serbian border, but after finding out what happened at her hotel during the war, her life will never be the same again. Adapting the film from the play, Seven Kilometers North-East, which Vercoe wrote and staged based on her own experiences, director Jasmila Zbanic stated that she was “completely taken aback by the power of her emotion and her poetics.” Kym Vercoe plays herself in the film. Jasmila Zbanic, whose films Grbavica / Esma’s Secret and Na Putu / On The Path were previously shown at the festival, will once again be coming to Istanbul as a guest of the festival.
THE ANTICIPATED FILMS OF THE SEASON AT “AKBANK GALAS”
“Akbank Galas,” one of the Istanbul Film Festival’s popular sections, hosts the Turkish premieres of awaited films bringing together stars and master directors while appealing to a wide audience. Screenings will be held at Atlas Cinema in Beyoğlu.
Premiering as the opening film at this year’s Berlinale and winner the Grand Jury Prize, Wes Anderson’s new film The Grand Budapest Hotel is among the Akbank Galas’ most anticipated films. Having its Turkish premiere at the festival, the film tells of the adventures of the famous Gustave H. and his close friend, lobby boy Zero Moustafa, at a legendary hotel in Europe in the 1920’s. The film stars Ralph Fiennes, as well as countless celebrities in big and small roles, including F. Murray Abraham, Edward Norton, Mathieu Amalric, Saoirse Ronan, Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Léa Seydoux, Jeff Goldblum, Jason Schwartzman, Jude Law, Tilda Swinton, Harvey Keitel, Tom Wilkinson, Bill Murray, and Owen Wilson.
The Invisible Woman, directed by and starring Best Actor Oscar nominee (Schinder’s List and The English Patient) Ralph Fiennes, is the story of Nelly Ternan, the mistress of Charles Dickens. Fiennes’ second film as director, and written by Abi Morgan, stars Felicity Jones as Dickens’ unforgettable love, Nelly.
The latest film from director Stephen Frears, winner of the Istanbul Film Festival’s Honorary Cinema Award in 2003, Philomena, an adaptation of Martin Sixsmith’s book The Lost Child of Philomena, will be screening as part of the Akbank Galas. Also the opening film of the festival, Philomena tells the real story of a mother looking for her lost son. Winning multiple awards at the Venice Film Festival, where it premiered, Philomena has been nominated for four BAFTAs, three Golden Globes, and four Oscars, including the categories of “Best Film” and “Best Actress”. In the film, adapted by Jeff Pope and Steve Coogan, who is also one of the film’s leading actors, the character of Philomena is portrayed with an impressive performance from Judi Dench.
Following L’Auberge Espagnole and Les Poupées Russes / Russian Dolls as the final instalment of French writer-director Cédric Klapisch’s trilogy, Casse-tête Chinois / Chinese Puzzle once again focuses on Xavier– now 40 and newly divorced– who follows his English ex-wife New York to be with his kids. This energetic urban comedy stars Romain Duris, Audrey Tautou, and Cécile de France whom Klapisch has worked with in his previous films.
Winner of the Best Director BAFTA for the television series Downton Abbey, Brian Percival has adapted international bestseller The Book Thief to the screen. The young actress Sophie Nélisse’s performance in the film has garnered great interest, earning awards from the Phoenix Film Critics Society and the Satellite Awards. Taking place in Nazi Germany, The Book Thief tells, from the perspective of the Angel of Death, the story of a little girl who creates a magical world for herself while stealing books. The film also stars Geoffrey Rush and Emily Watson in leading roles.
One of the heavily anticipated Gala films, La Vénus à la fourrure / Venus in Fur, Roman Polanski’s latest film, which competed for the Palm d’or at Cannes, is an adaptation of the famous stage play. This is the story of a director and an actress who is trying to seize the principal part in his new stage production. The sly traps that the two build for each other are in fact the reflections of age old rivalry between man and woman. Polanski mischievously pokes fun at himself as master and slave continually swap places, for Mathieu Amalric, who plays the director, uncannily resembles a young Polanski while Polanski’s real life wife Emmanuelle Seigner plays the actress. Polanski won Best Director at the César Awards on 28 February.
The Akbank Galas’ most anticipated films are from Villeneuve! Canadian director Denis Villeneuve, whose Polytechnique screened at 2009’s Filmekimi and whose Incendies competed for the Golden Tulip at the 30th Istanbul Film Festival, will once again be part of the festival programme with two 2013 productions, Prisoners and Enemy.
Enemy, inspired by Nobel Prize-winning author José Saramago’s novel The Double and written by Javier Gullón, is a thriller centred around a man who tries to track down his look-alike after seeing him on television. Jake Gyllenhaal plays two identical characters in the film’s leading role while accompanied by Mélanie Laurent, Isabella Rossellini, Sarah Gadon, Stephen R. Hart, and Jane Moffat. Enemy won Best Film at the Courmayeur Noir Film Festival.
Nominated for the Best Achievement in Cinematography Oscar, Prisoners takes a close look at the events surrounding the kidnapping of two young girls. Upon receiving an offer to direct another film while filming Enemy, Denis Villeneuve immediately cast Jake Gyllenhaal, with whom he enjoyed working, in this film as well. A breath-taking crime thriller, Enemy’s cast also includes Hugh Jackman, Maria Bello, Terrence Howard, Melissa Leo, and Paul Dano.
Director Fred Schepisi’s long-awaited film Words and Pictures will also be presented at the festival’s Akbank Galas.
SPECIAL SCREENING: TURKISH CLASSICS REVISITED
Istanbul Film Festival brings the masterpieces of Turkish cinema to the silver screen in its “Special Screening: Turkish Classics Revisited” section, initiated seven years ago under the sponsorship of Groupama.
This year, at the special screening of the festival, 1987 production Muhsin Bey, written and directed by Yavuz Turgul, who received Cinema Honorary Award in 2005 and Special Jury Award at the Istanbul Film Festival in 1988, starring Şener Şen, Uğur Yücel and Sermin Hürmeriç, will be presented to the audience after being restored by Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University Turkish Film&TV Institute. The leading actor of the film Şener Şen had received the Cinema Honorary Award of the festival in 2006 and its director of photography Aytekin Çakmakçı in 2013. The producer of the film Abdurrahman Keskiner and the composer of its soundtrack Attila Özdemiroğlu will receive the Cinema Honorary Awards this year.
With the cooperation of Groupama, cinephiles had the opportunity to watch the restored copies of 1979 film Bereketli Topraklar Üzerinde / On Fertile Lands by Erden Kıral, 1949 film Vurun Kahpeye / Strike the Whore by Lütfi Ö. Akad, 1978 film Selvi Boylum Al Yazmalım / The Girl with the Red Scarf by Atıf Yılmaz, 1958 film Üç Arkadaş / Three Friends by Memduh Ün, 1964 film Gurbet Kuşları / Birds of Exile by Halit Refiğ and 1968 film Vesikalı Yarim / My Prostitute Love by Lütfi Ö. Akad.
SPECIAL SECTIONS OF THIS YEAR’S FESTIVAL
100 Years of Turkish Cinema: What A Pair
The Istanbul Film Festival is celebrating the 100th year of Turkish cinema with a very special 38 film selection. While preparing this special programme for the 100th year of Turkish cinema, film critics
Fatih Özgüven and Engin Ertan, academicians Selim Eyüboğlu and Umut Tümay Arslan, and Istanbul Film Festival Director Azize Tan also realized that certain themes emerged while trying to look at the outstanding choices in front of them from a different perspective. While looking at a hundred-year history of Turkish film, instead of preparing another best-of list, they preferred pairings with similar troubles, who wouldn’t seem related at a first glance. This way, they tried to draw attention to the fact that issues at hand may sometimes also pop up in the most unexpected films.
The paired films in the “What A Pair” section, also named after a film, deal with themes from gender role representations to power ambitions, from men symbolising the dominant force to women fighting for existence, from the notions of city, village and province, to Istanbul and even Beyoğlu as a topic and a stage unto themselves, and from the Kurdish issue to minorities, mirroring the hundred years of Turkish cinema as the country itself.
Leader of Independent Cinema, Marin Karmitz and MK2
This special section, dedicated to a great contributor to the world film industry, celebrating the 40th year of his cinema career in 2014, director and producer Marin Karmitz, and his production and film company MK2’s 40th anniversary, will host a series of films including Abbas Kiarostami’s Five, Xavier Dolan’s Laurence Anyways, Lodge Kerrigan’s Claire Dolan, and Paolo and Vittorio Taviani’s Kaos–MK2 films that have not been screened as part of the festival in earlier editions.
With the 12 cinema complexes and 65 theatres he has opened under MK2, Marin Karmitz, who has worked with esteemed directors such as Theo Angelopoulos, Michael Haneke, Krzysztof Kieslowski, and Fatih Akın, is one of the leading figures of French independent cinema. MK2, founded by Karmitz, has won over one hundred international awards with the over one hundred films it produced over the years.
Greatly contributing to the world independent film industry, director and producer Marin Karmitz will be in Istanbul to receive the Honorary Cinema Award at the festival’s closing and awards ceremony on Saturday, 19 April at Cemal Reşit Rey Concert Hall. He will also be conducting a master class.
Polish Experimental Animation: An Anthology
In parallel to the events organised as part of the 2014 cultural programme celebrating 600 years of diplomatic relations between Turkey and Poland, the Istanbul Film Festival will be showing 40 short films as part of the Polish Experimental Animation Cinema Anthology, compiled by Poznan Animated Film Festival Director, art historian, and critic, Marcin Giżycki. Besides the screenings, to be presented in three programmes at Pera Museum, Polish animation director Mariusz Wilczynski and film critic Adriana Prodeus will also take part in a panel discussion.
War and Remembrance: Films of Aleksey Guerman
One of Russian cinema’s most important representatives, whose name is frequently remembered alongside Tarkovsky even though he’s only made six films, Aleksey Guerman’s entire filmography will be screened as part of the festival. The retrospective, bringing together the work of the famous director who passed away in 2013, will include The Seventh Companion, Trial on the Road, Twenty Days Without War, My Friend Ivan Lapshin, Khrustalyov, mashinu! / Khrustalyov, My Car!, and the 2013 production Hard to be a God, which was completed by Guerman’s wife after his death.
Where Are You My Love?
This new section of the festival brings together films that say love has no age and no gender and there are a thousand ways to find love.
Sexual tensions fly high in Marco Berger’s (Plan B and Absent) new film Hawaii, part of this year’s programme. Eugenio is trying to write his new novel at his summer house and a young man who knocks on his door looking for a job turns out to be his childhood friend Martín. Martin first starts to help with daily chores, and moves in with Eugenio several days later. They observe each other with transient glances, but can’t verbalize what they think since they can’t anticipate the reaction. Berger makes an erotic and passionate film out of this modest story by masterfully using sound and image.
A prolific editor and co-writer of The Class, Foxfire, and Heading South, director Robin Campillo’s latest film Eastern Boys was selected Best Film in the Horizons section at Venice. The film tells the story of a man, living near Paris, who falls prey to a male prostitute gang from Eastern Europe. With its surprising plot, Eastern Boys creates a disturbing suspense with unexpected twists that boldly observes the state of immigrants in France and the need for intimacy.
French director Alain Guiraudie’s latest release L’Inconnu du Lac / Stranger by the Lake garnered praise from critics and audiences alike with its approach to issues such as death, sexuality, queer culture, and friendship. Premiering in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes Stranger by the Lake won the Directing Prize, as well as the Queer Palm at Cannes. In the vein of a Hitchcockian murder mystery, the film takes place in the summer heat, at a nudist beach. The films’ lead actor Christophe Pau will be joining the festival.
Winning the Cinematography Award at the Sundance Film Festival, Hong Khaou’s debut film, Lilting, is a subtle drama dealing with love and loss. The film focuses on a Cambodian woman who has lost her son meeting her late son’s boyfriend, and the consolation they find in one another. Director Khaou was inspired by Wong Kar-wai’s In The Mood For Love, while devising the visual structure of the film.
Premiering at the Toronto and Venice film festivals, taboo-breaking underground queer director Bruce LaBruce’s new film Gerontophilia is one of the section’s most interesting films. The protagonists of this fairly unusual romance are Lake, a young man, and Mr. Peabody, an octogenarian man who resides in a nursing home. Staring Pier-Gabriel Lajoie in its leading role, Gerontophilia sees Bruce LaBruce taking a more tender approach while playing with the politics of the body and gender. The film won Best Canadian Film at the Montreal Film Festival.
One of this year’s audience favourites at the Berlin Film Festival and winner of the Teddy Award, director Daniel Riberio’s first feature-length film Hoje Eu Quero Voltar Sozinho / The Way He Looks, centres on the intoxicating effects of first love. Leonardo, a blind teenager, quickly warms to Gabriel, the new student in his class, and realises he’s in love, not long after. However, his best friend Giovana has also fallen for Gabriel.
Swedish director Ester Martin Bergsmark’s Something Must Break will also be presented in this section.
The First World War and Modernity in Crisis
The festival will be commemorating the 100th anniversary of World War I with a co-screening of two films in a special section titled “The First World War and Modernity in Crisis”. One of the films included in this section is Wie der Horror ins Kino kam / When Horror came into Cinema, directed by film critic, festival programmer, and one of last year’s Seyfi Teoman First Film Award jury members Rüdiger Suchsland. Screening in parallel with this documentary will be one of Weimar Germany’s first films, Robert Siodmak and Edgar G. Ulmer’s 1929 film production Menschen am Sonntag / People on Sunday. This special section will also include a panel entitled The First World War and Modernity in Crisis.
CLASSIC SECTIONS OF THE FESTIVAL
Masters
With the “Masters” section, cinephiles will have the opportunity of watching the latest films from master directors who defy the years, continuing to shape the direction of world cinema.
Walesa. Czlowiek z nadziei / Walesa. Man Of Hope, legendary director Andrzej Wajda’s latest film starring Robert Wieckiewicz, Agnieszka Grochowska, and Iwona Bielska, introduces the private, even intimate sphere of Lech Walesa – the Polish “Solidarity“ Trade Union’s leader – attempting to capture his incredible metamorphosis from a simple worker into a Nobel Prize-winning charismatic leader. Poland’s Oscar nominee that premiered at the Venice Film Festival, Walesa is one of the best political films of the year. Andrzej Wajda, will be receiving this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award at the festival. The award will be presented to the films leading actor, at the Walesa screening.
Known for his films Exotica and Ararat, director Atom Egoyan’s latest film Devil’s Knot was adapted to the screen from Maria Leveritt’s novel of the same name, inspired by real events. Produced by Paul Harris Boardman and starring Reese Witherspoon, Kevin Durand, Stephen Moyer, Colin Firth, Elias Koteas, and Bruce Greenwood, the film goes back to 1993 to a small town on the “Bible Belt,” where three young children were savagely murdered. The police identify three teens, later known as the West Memphis Three, as committing the murders during a satanic ritual. The film focuses on the questioning and subsequent trial of the teens.
In his new film La Jalousie / Jealousy, Philippe Garrel once again hands the lead role to his son Louis Garrel, but this time the young actor plays a character inspired by his grandfather. Relations between men and women, Parisian bohemians, the art world, and black & white imagery are, of course, familiar key words from Garrel’s previous films. The films leading actress Anna Mouglalis will be among the festival’s guests.
Terry Gilliam’s latest film The Zero Theorem is the final film of the directors dystopian trilogy that started with Brazil in 1985 and continued with 12 Monkeys in 1995. Written by Pat Rushin, this sci-fi film follows an eccentric computer genius plagued with existential angst, working on a mysterious project aimed at discovering the purpose of existence, who accidentally steps on the toes of those higher up. Premiering at the Venice Film Festival, The Zero Theorem‘s cast includes Christoph Waltz, Lucas Hedges, Ben Whishaw, Tilda Swinton, Mélanie Thierry and David Thewlis. Set in an unspecified future, this is an action film that combines Gilliam’s eye-catching set designs with technology and paranoia.
Bertrand Tavernier’s latest film Quai d’Orsay / The French Minister, which won Best Screenplay at the San Sebastián Film Festival, is an enjoyable political satire of bureaucracy. Recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2001 Istanbul Film Festival, the cast of master director Bertrand Tavernier’s film includes
Julie Gayet, Jane Birkin, Thierry Lhermitte, Raphaël Personnaz, and Niels Arestrup. Premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival, the film is adapted from the comic book of the same name by Antonin Baudry and Christophe Blain. The screenplay is inspired by the time Baudry had worked for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
It is rare in cinema that a master tells the story of his friendship with another master. Che strano chiamarsi Federico, Scola racconta Fellini / How Strange to be Named Federico, Scola Narrates Fellini is just such a film. Here, the friendship of two very close friends and colleagues Federico Fellini and Ettore Scola’s relationship is carried to the screen. It’s an unparalleled look at the both Italian and World cinema.
Screening at a special gala at Berlinale, Dipomatie / Diplomacy, the new film from Volker Schlöndorff, whose 1970 cult film Baal will also be screened at the festival, is a psychological thriller based on real events during World War II. The film’s two protagonists are Nazi unit commander Von Cholitz who has received the order to demolish Paris as the Allies approach and Swedish ambassador Nordling who tries to dissuade him.
Lars Von Trier’s latest film Nymphomaniac, which premiered at Berlinale is about a sex addict, played by Charlotte Gainsbourg, but despite its graphic sex scenes, as many critics have agreed, it isn’t really erotic. In fact, it is deliberately unsexy. The questions it raises have more to do with the darkness of human nature and our approach to sex, and, of course, with the much-debated director himself. The film will be screened in two parts: Part 1 (110’) and Part 2 (130’).
Documentary Time With NTV
The Istanbul Film Festival’s documentary section will once again be sponsored by NTV.
Slated at the opening slot of one of the most respected documentary festivals in the world, IDFA, and winning the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival Return to Homs paints a portrait of revolutionist youngsters at the Syrian city of Homs. The film follows two close friends –football hero 19-year-old Basset and 24-year-old video-activist Ossam, during a period of three years, watching them begin their struggle for freedom with passive resistance but finding themselves engaged in armed conflicts. Guest of the festival two years ago and speaking at the panel for “Filming Revolution,” Syrian documentarian, producer, and festival maker Orwa Nyrabia, is also one of the film’s producers. Director Talal Derki will be joining a panel focusing on filmmaking during wartime.
Winning Best Documentary Oscar, 20 Feet from Stardom has been described as director
Morgan Neville’s “love letter to vocalists.” Appealing to sight and sound, this documentary is a salute to music veterans, oft forgotten.
Bringing the Golden Lion to Italy after 15 years, and becoming the first-ever documentary to win at the Venice Film Festival, Sacro GRA is one of the sections’ stand-out documentaries. Written and directed by one time Istanbulite Gianfranco Rosi, the film depicts the life around the GRA highway surrounding Rome. Inspired by Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, Rosi worked on the film for two years.
Directed, produced and edited by the scriptwriter Luca Guadagnino and the director Walter Fasano of I am Love, this film-essay is a first-hand account of cinema, given by Bernardo Bertolucci. Taking two years to prepare, Bertolucci on Bertolucci came to life from over 300 hours of archival footage from around the world.
Competing for “Best Documentary” at the BAFTAs and part of the 15-film Oscar documentary pre-list, The Armstrong Lie chronicles the story of cycling champion Lance Armstrong, who won numerous championships after his battle with cancer, then got banned from the sport for life for doping. Following Armstrong, who has said “I can’t stand the idea of losing because to me that equals death,” from 2008 to 2011, director Alex Gibney tells the story of his improbably rise and ultimate fall from grace. Premiering at the Venice and Toronto Film Festivals, Gibney’s previous documentary Mea Maxima Culpa had screened at the 32nd Istanbul Film Festival.
For over fifty years, writer J.D. Salinger, who died in 2010, has been one of the most elusive figures in American history. His novel Catcher in the Rye is still considered an iconic document of post-war America, but after publishing his last story in 1965, Salinger disappeared from the public eye. All of the attempts to uncover the truth about his disappearance have failed. Salinger interviews 150 people, including Salinger’s friends and colleagues to solve his mystery, creating an oral biography constructed in the vein a thriller.
James Toback’s documentary Seduced and Abandoned entertainingly tells the story of a problem from within the film industry, the often painful search for a producer. In the words of Alec Baldwin “the business of film is the worst lover you can find: you will be seduced and abandoned over and over again.” In the film director James Toback and actor Alec Baldwin come to Cannes in order to find a producer for their joint project of an erotic thriller. The film then chronicles their meetings with studio owners, millionaires, producers, and distributors step by step. Featuring the likes of Berenice Bejo, Bernardo Bertolucci, James Caan, Neve Campbell, Jessica Chastain, Diablo Cody, Francis Ford Coppola, and Ryan Gosling, Seduced and Abandoned premiered at Cannes.
Winner of the Jury Prize at the Critics Week in Locarno, Marc Bauder’s Master of the Universe depicts 1980’s investment banker Rainer Voss’ outlook from the golden days of capitalism when he played with millions of dollars to today’s global financial crises. A shocking, mystifying, and terrifying documentary on banking, capitalism and the politics of money…
Members of Pussy Riot were arrested in 2013 in Russia, charged with “using religious sensitivities to revolt,” and taken to a labour camp. The cinema collective Gogol’s Wives documents the process of the punishment of these feminist punk musicians by the oppressive Russian government in the film Pussy Versus Putin. The film’s crew will not release their names, for reasons of security. Winner of Best Mid-Length Documentary at DFA, the film presents the circumstances of the Russian population, while examining Pussy Riot’s demonstrations.
The second film by Greek Cypriot journalist and director Nina Maria Paschalidou, Kismet investigates the captivating effects of Turkish soap operas on women from the Balkans, Middle East and Northern Africa. Paschalidou is trying to decode the allure of these productions which glue many women from different ethnic and religious backgrounds to the screen. Television shows like Gümüş / Silver, Fatmagül’ün Suçu Ne / What is Fatmagul’s Fault?, and Muhteşem Yüzyıl / The Magnificent Century affect the social and religious lives of women in these countries and make them question themselves and their positions in society. Filming in Turkey, Egypt, The United Arab Emirates, Bulgaria, and Greece, Nina Maria Paschalidou also interviewed many actors, producers, writers, and audience members. Director Nina Maria Paschalidou will be taking part in a panel, while the guest of the festival.
Taking off from the legendary director Ingmar Bergman’s extensive collection of VHS tapes, Trespassing Bergman takes you to his mystical home on the island of Fårö in the company of the great directors like Woody Allen, Robert De Niro, Lars von Trier, Holly Hunter, Martin Scorsese, Claire Denis, Michael Haneke, and Francis Ford Coppola. Telling the story of Bergman, his island, some of his most central films, how they have affected filmmakers and the history of cinema, the film also contains never-before-seen behind the scenes footage from some of his features.
Winning the Cinema Fairbindet Prize for creativity in Berlin, Concerning Violence covers the most daring moments in the struggle for liberation in the African colonies, focusing on the 1960s and 1970s. Combining newly discovered, powerful archive material, this arresting documentary is based on Marxist psychiatrist and philosopher Frantz Fanon’s book The Wretched of the Earth which analyses the psychological and dehumanising effects of colonialism. Narrated by Lauryn Hill, this new film by Göran Olsson, director of Black Power Mixtape, premiered at Sundance and later Berlin film festivals.
From The World of Festivals
“From The World of Festivals” section, sponsored by Sabah Newspaper, will present audiences with 20 films by prominent directors that have been shown at world festivals and mostly won awards.
The winner of the grand prize, the Golden Berlin Bear, at the Berlin Film Festival, is once again part of this year’s festival programme. Diao Yinan’s third feature film, Bai ri yan huo / Black Coal, Thin Ice is a detective story taking place in the north of China. The film’s leading actor Liao Fan also won the Silver Bear for Best Actor at Berlin.
Tracing the bitter trails of the Nazi occupation and the Holocaust in Poland, Ida, the latest from Poland-born British filmmaker Pawel Pawlikowski, looks to be one of the best films of 2014, receiving multiple awards at international festivals. It returned from the London, Les Arcs, Gdynia, and Warsaw festivals with Best Film, from Toronto with the FIPRESCI, and Best Actress awards for both of its leading names Agata Kulesza and Agata Trzebuchowska. Set in Poland in the 1960s and shot in black&white to better embrace the gloomy atmosphere of the era, the film follows Anna, a young nun whose life changes when she discovers she’s actually Jewish, right before taking her final vows. Pawel Pawlikowski and the film’s leading actress Agata Trzebuchowska will be at the festival.
Winner of the Un Certain Regard FIPRESCI Award at Cannes in 2013, Dast-Neveshtehaa Nemisoosand / Manuscripts Don’t Burn is based on the Iran regime’s planned assassination of 21 writers and journalists in 1995. Director Muhammed Rasulof tells this story of authoritarian regimes, censorship, and oppression through author Kasra, secretly transcribing his memories while in prison as a political detainee. Muhammed Rasulof who had been sentenced to six years in prison and forbidden from making films, was banned from leaving the country in 2013. The film crew is kept anonymous for the safety of their lives.
Starring the always astonishing Catherine Deneuve and Gustave de Kervern (director of Le grand soir and co-director of Mammuth) and directed by Pierre Salvadori, Dans la cour / In the Courtyard premiered at the Berlin Film Festival at a special gala screening in February. Touching and at moments funny, the film follows Mathilde and Antoine, two lonely inhabitants of a Parisian apartment building. Suddenly deciding to end his career, 40-year-old musician Antoine is hired as the caretaker of an old residential building in Paris. Recently retired, Mathilde is a sweet but insecure woman. Slowly, the two develop an awkward friendship…
From the World of Festivals will also include, director of 2013’s Tabu, Miguel Gomes’ latest short film that was presented at the Venice Film Festival, Redemption. The director’s other short films Cântico Das Criaturas, 31, Inventário De Natal / Christmas Inventory, and Entretanto will be screened in tandem.
Long ago, the Fox and the Raccoon made a bet: to take human shape to steal the richness of a human being. Based on this tale, Ningen tells the story of the swindling of a wealthy CEO. Mixing fantasy with allegory through poetic storytelling, Ningen is a visually stunning and deeply moving film based on a Japanese story. The second fiction feature by the award-winning directorial duo Çağla Zencirci and Guillaume Giovanetti, Ningen premiered at Toronto Film Festival.
Winner of the Abu Dhabi Special Jury Award, Best Film at the Chicago Film Festival, Best Film, Screenplay, and Actress at the Duhok (Iraq) Film Festival, and recipient of the Audience Award at Iverness, My Sweet Pepper Land is a story of resistance. Known for his films Vodka Lemon and Kilomètre zéro / Kilometre Zero, writer and director Hiner Saleem’s latest film takes place after the fall of Saddam Hussein, and follows Baran, a Kurdish war hero who accepts the position of chief of police in a godforsaken village at the border of Iran and Turkey – a lawless territory, the heart of illegal trafficking. There he meets Govend, a beautiful, independent woman who has come to work as the teacher in the newly-opened school. Playful and provocative, this Middle-eastern cowboy movie follows Baran and Govend as they challenge traditional oppression and the local chieftain. Hiner Saleem and Golshifteh Farahani will be among the festival’s guests.
One of American Independent Film’s pioneering names Alexandre Rockwell’s latest film Little Feet, winner of the 2013 Mar del Plata Special Jury Award, takes us into the world of children. Little Feet, tells the story of two newly orphaned siblings’ journey down to the river along with a kid who recently moved in to their neighbourhood. Real life siblings and Rockwell’s daughter, Lana and Nico Rockwell, play the main characters in this black and white film written by Rockwell, which forms a unique narrative through freestyle editing.
The second feature film by Uberto Pasolini, the producer of The Full Monty, Still Life takes the life story of an ordinary man to the silver screen. The films protagonist, John is a social worker who searches to find the next of kin of people who have died alone. A melancholic film which succeeds in balancing comedy and drama as it underlines the importance of family, Still Life won the Best Director in the Horizons and Critic’s Prize sections of the Venice Film Festival. Pasolini will also be amongst the festival’s guests.
Written by award-winning psychotherapist Jonathan Asse and directed by David Mackenzie, Starred Up is being described as the best prison movie since A Prophet. Gripping, shaking, and continuously surprising, the film follows Eric, a young offender thrown into the dark world of an adult prison due to uncontrolled violent behaviour. Young actor Jack O’Connell won the award for Best Actor at the Les Arcs Film Festival with his performance as Eric. David Mackenzie will also be among the festival’s guests.
Yorgos Tsemberopoulos’s first film in 12 years, O ehthros mou / The Enemy Within, one of the latest examples of the Greek new wave, tells the story of an ordinary man whose calm and happy life gets marred by violence when a group of men invade his home. Mirroring the state of crisis and the corruption surrounding the country, the film won the Silver Pillar at the Luxor Film Festival. Yorgos Tsemberopoulos will be a guest in the festival.
A conspiracy thriller set in the ’80s when enormous oil deposits were discovered in the North Sea, Pionér / Pioneer is the latest feature from Erik Skjoldbjærg, known for Insomnia and Prozac Nation. After the unexpected death of a friend, Petter, a professional diver, starts to investigate the incident. But while he dives deeper into the web of links between government and oil companies, he realizes that he is in way over his head and that his life is at stake. The film was part of the “Special Screening” section at the Toronto International Film Festival, and stars Wes Bentley, Stephen Lang, and Aksel Hennie. Pioneer won Best Cinematography at the Chicago Film Festival.
Donovan Marsh’s iNumber Number is an action thriller that will garner great attention with its visuals, as well as its production process. The role of Chilli was created for lead actor S’dumo Mtshali, who was the winner of a televised acting competition called “Class Act.” Chilli is an honest undercover police officer who is tempted to commit a one-time burglary after being cheated.
After her well-known debut Belle Epine, writer-director Rebecca Zlotowski’s second feature, Grand Central, is a radioactive working class drama that observes a love triangle set in and around a nuclear power plant. Winner of the FIPRESCI Award at the Vienna Film Festival, the film’s cast is lead by Blue is the Warmest Colour’s
Léa Seydoux.
A must for actors as much as enthusiasts of theatre, film, philosophy and literature, Trois exercises d’interprétation / Three Interpretation Exercises‘s title actually explains itself. In 2012, Romanian filmmaker Cristi Puiu (The Death Of Mr. Lazarescu and Aurora) was invited to a workshop on film acting for the Chantiers Nomades in Toulouse, and ended up making a film instead of lecturing. He chose Russian poet and philosopher Vladimir Solovyov’s improvisational Three Conversations and had the participants discussing matters as war, morality, religion, friendship, and even football. The result is an intellectual exercise on life and acting in the form of an experimental documentary.
Winner of the Berlin Panorama Ecumenic Prize, Calvary is a dark comedy about secrets and the fear of the death, from Irish director John Michael McDonagh. The film centres on Father James, played by Brendan Gleeson, who is told by a man during confession that he’s going to kill him in a week and his efforts to get his life in order and dissuade his killer.
Antidepressant
The “Antidepressant” section, which was a part of the 29th Istanbul Film Festival in 2010 for the first time and has now became a staple of the festival, will take place under the sponsorship of SinemaTV.
Writer-director Lance Daly’s latest film Life’s a Breeze is a feel-good family comedy set in post-recession Ireland. Unemployed slacker Colm and his niece Emma accidentally dump a mattress full of money and appeal for help on the radio. Humorously, before too long the entire country is on the hunt in the dumps and the family is on the brink of falling apart.
Lukas Moodysson’s Vi är bäst! / We are the Best!, adapted from the comic book written and drawn by his wife Coco, is a film calling out to all cinephiles. Bobo, Klara, and Hedvig, three 13-year old girls who have been taking care of themselves, decide to start a punk band without any instruments. Demonstrating through film that life is worth living, We are the Best! won the Grand Prix at Tokyo, the Audience Award at Reykjavik, and the Prize of the Baltic Jury at Lübeck.
Club Sándwich, written and directed by Fernando Eimbcke, known for Temporada de patos / Duck Season and Lake Tahoe, is a humorous Mexican production about the growing pains from the perspective of both teenagers and parents. Starring Lucio Giménez Cacho, María Renée Prudencio, and Danae Reynaud,
Club Sándwich won Best Director at the San Sebastion and Torino film festivals. Fernando Eimbicke will be one of the festival’s guests.
Director Sylvain Chomet returns to cinema with his first live-action film, Attila Marcel, featuring all his visual wit and inventiveness we are accustomed to see in his earlier hits, The Triplets of Belleville, and The Illusionist. Written and directed by Chomet, the film follows Attila, a 30-something man-child living with his two eccentric aunts, who has not spoken a single word since the death of his parents when he was 2. Starring Guillaume Gouix, Anne Le Ny, and Bernadette Lafont, Attila Marcel premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Pathological cinephiles, helpless romantics, Woody Allenesque dialogues, incessant and excessive drinking, an endless chain of cigarettes… Uri Sunhi / Our Sunhi, the latest film from the prolific hero of the South Korean new wave, Hong Sang-soo received the Silver Leopard at the Locarno Film Festival. The film is a comedy of manners, which follows a young woman and three hopeless men who orbit her.
After garnering attention with Amreeka, May in the Summer is Cherien Dabis’ latest film. Set to marry her loving fiancé, May travels to her childhood home of Amman in Jordan for her wedding, but quickly finds herself in conflict with her family. May in the Summer was the opening film in the Drama section of the Sundance Film Festival. Cherien Dabis will be attending this year’s festival.
Midnight Madness
The now classic “Midnight Madness” section, sponsored by tv2, is anticipated by those preferring stimulating, provocative, and shocking films over sleep. These films brought to you at 24.00 screenings every Friday nights at Beyoğlu and Saturday nights at Atlas throughout the festival, will leave you sleepless.
Written and directed by Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado, the Israeli production Big Bad Wolves stars Lior Ashkenazi, Rotem Keinan, and Tzahi Grad. After a series of brutal murders, the film follows the father of the latest victim now out for revenge, and a vigilante police detective operating outside the law. Hailed by Quentin Tarantino as “the film of the year,” Big Bad Wolves’ director and producer will be guests at the festival.
Short film director Jennifer Kent’s feature film debut The Babadook, following Polanski’s classic horror-at-home tradition, tells the story of mother Amelia and her son Samuel. Samuel keeps dreaming about a monster that is trying to kill them both. Once day, while at home, a fairy tale book called Babadook shows up. Samuel immediately starts to believe that the monster he’s dreaming of is Babadook, but maybe Babadook is real…
New Visions
“New Visions,” sponsored by Nescafé Gold, presents up-and-coming directors who have garnered attention from the world film industry with their first or second features.
Bethlehem tells the story of the unlikely bond between Razi, an Israeli secret service officer, and his 17-year-old Palestinian informant Sanfur, the younger brother of a senior Al-Aqsa militant. Focusing on issues of loyalty, moral dualities, and two brothers at the breaking point, Yuval Adler’s first feature film came together after years of research and correspondence with Shin Bet workers and Palestinian militants. Co-written by Yuval Adler and Palestinian Arab journalist Ali Waked was nominated for Best Foreign Language film at the Oscars and won for Best Film at the Haifa Film Festival.
Russian director Yuri Bykov’s second feature film Mayor / The Major, which premiered at Cannes in the Critics’ Week, is a police thriller. Staring Denis Shvedov, Yuri Bykov, and Irina Nizina, the film examines the Russian police force from the perspective of a corrupt police major. Premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival, The Major went on to win Best Film at the Shanghai Film Festival.
Making a name for themselves with Rita, considered to be one of the best short films of recent years in Europe, Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza’s feature film debut Salvo held its world premiere at Cannes. Starring Saleh Bakri, Luigi Lo Cascio, and Sara Serraiocco, the film follows a solitary, cold, and ruthless henchman for the Sicilian Mafia, who discovers Rita, a young blind girl, in a hide-out and takes her hostage. Salvo won the Critics’ Week Grand Prix at Cannes and the FIPRESCI Prize for Best Debut at Lodz.
The debut feature of actress-writer-director Geetu Mohandas, Liar’s Dice, includes aspects of a thriller, as well as a road movie. Staring actress Geetanjali Thapa and Bollywood actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui from Lunchbox and Gangs of Wasseypur, the film follows Kamla, a young woman who does not heed the elders of her Himalayan village and hits the road to find her husband who’s been missing for five months.
Co-produced by last year’s festival guest Carlos Reygadas, El Mudo / The Mute is the long-awaited second feature of Peruvian directors Daniel and Diego Vega. Staring Fernando Bacilio, Lidia Rodríguez, and Juan Luis Maldonado, Bacillo received the Best Actor award at the Locarno Film Festival for his role in the film. In this dark comedy, directors Diego and Daniel Vega focus on the corruption in Mexican society through the eyes of a flawless judge.
Mexican Claudia Sainte-Luce’s film Los insólitos peces gato / The Amazing Catfish is a sad, yet warm family film. Recipient of the Young Jury Prize at Locarno and selected Best Latin American Film at Mar Del Plata, The Amazing Cat Fish tells the story of an aimless young woman named Claudia, who accidentally meets terminal patient Martha, and slowly starts to become a part of her family.
Câinele Japonez / The Japanese Dog, the simple tale of father and son, is Romanian director
Tudor Cristian Jurgiu’s debut feature. Premiering at the San Sebastian Film Festival, the film focuses on the proud and independent life of Costache, who is abruptly devastated when a recent flood kills his wife, his dog, and destroys his home. While telling a family drama, the film also observes the effects of the global crisis in Romania. Tudor Cristian Jurgiu will also be one of the festival’s guests.
Risse im Beton / Cracks in the Concrete, Umut Dağ’s subsequent feature after Kuma takes a look at problematic family relationships. After spending 10 years in jail, Ertan hopes to make a new start, staying far from the world of crime. However, no one believes him. Keeping his identity secret, he tries to approach his estranged son Mikail, hoping to steer him away from the world of crime. Premiering at the Berlin Film Festival, this father-son story won recognition with its energetic style.
Andrea Pallaoro’s Medeas opens with an idyllic portrait of a family on a warm summer afternoon, and that is the last time we see them happy together. The debut feature of award-winning film and theatre director Andrea Pallaoro, the film follows Ennis, a stern, hard-working dairy farmer, and his hearing-impaired wife, Christina, who are progressively disconnecting from each other and their five children as tensions increase. Premiering at the Orrizonti section of the Venice Film Festival, Medeas investigates the human perception of alienation and intimacy, passion, desperation, and heartbreak. Director Andrea Pallaoro will be among the festival’s guests.
O lobo atrás da Porta / Wolf at the Door, the suspenseful first feature film of Brazilian filmmaker Fernando Coimbra won Best Fiction at the Rio Film Festival and the Horizontes Latinos Prize at the San Sebastian Film Festival. Exploring the cruelties and hate that lie in every human being, this dark thriller tackles every parent’s nightmare: the kidnapping of their child. Sylvia and Bernardo are shocked to learn that their daughter was picked up from school by an unknown woman, but Bernardo is suspecting an unlikely person for the abduction: his lover, Rosa.
Mined Zone
One of the İstanbul Film Festival’s anticipated sections, “Mined Zone,” will feature 9 films pushing the limits of different styles and narratives, roaming uncanny territory with their approaches and techniques.
Written and directed by Alexandros Avranas, 2013’s internationally renowned film Miss Violence, also regarded as a successful example of the Greek New Wave, follows the drama of a family who tries to understand, moreover quickly forget, their 11-year-old daughter Angeliki who commits suicide on her birthday. Evaluating economic crises’ relationship with moral degeneration and deviance, the film earned the Silver Lion Best Director for Alexandros Avranas and the Volpi Cup for Best Actor for its Istanbul-born lead actor,
Themis Panou. Alexandros Avranas and Themis Panou will also be present at the festival.
Tsai Ming-liang’s other film in the programme, Jiao You / Stray Dogs is a poetic and subtle tragicomedy following a father, who is a human billboard–a homeless, advertising for luxury apartments– and his two children. Starring Kang-sheng Lee, Shiang-chyi Chen, and Yi Cheng Lee, Stray Dogs won Best Actor and Best Director at the Taipei Film Festival, as well as the Golden Special Jury Prize and Special Mention at the Venice Film Festival.
Winner of the Golden Tulip in 2004 with Bu san / Goodbye, Dragon Inn, Tsai Ming-liang’s latest film Xi You / Journey to the West, premiering at the Berlin Film Festival’s Panorama section, is his second film in the festival programme. Staring the director’s favourite actor Lee Kang-sheng and Leos Carax’s favourite actor Denis Lavant, Journey to the West, inspired by Buddhist rituals, follows a monk traversing the streets of Marseille and Noailles.
Listed in numerous top films lists of 2013, Norte, hangganan ng kasaysayan / Norte, the End of History is the latest work from independent Filipino filmmaker Lav Diaz, who is known for defying conventions. Linking Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment with a powerful portrait of modern Filipino society, the film chronicles the parallel lives of a simple man wrongly convicted of murder and the real killer, a nihilistic intellectual frustrated with his country’s never-ending cycle of betrayal and apathy. Norte, the End of History won the Main Award at the Nuremberg Human Rights Film Festival.
Receiving awards for Best Screenplay from Hamburg, Best Actress at Fantastic Fest (USA), the New Auteurs Critics Award at AFI, and Best Youth Movie at Tallinn, Tore Tanzt / Nothing Bad Can Happen follows the young Tore who seeks a new life in Hamburg among the religious group called The Jesus Freaks. Facing increasing sexual and physical violence from the family he’s moved in with, Tore will stay with them true to his beliefs, fighting the torment with his own weapons, suffering unimaginable cruelty and torture. Inspired by true events, this debut feature from German writer-director Katrin Gebbe is an unsettling psychological thriller that premiered at the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes.
Child of God, the latest feature directed by multi-talented James Franco, is based on the novel by author Cormac McCarthy. While aiding the writing the film, Franco is also part of its cast. Premiering in the competition for the 70th International Venice Film Festival, the film is starring Tim Blake Nelson and Jim Patrick. This adaptation captures the darkness of the 1960s in mountainous Sevier County, Tennessee, to tell the harsh story of Lester Ballard, a dispossessed, violent man who cast outside the social order. Cormac McCarthy’s novel The No Country for Old Men was also adapted to the big screen.
Director of the documentary El Arsenal, Sebastián Sepúlveda wrote and directed his fiction film debut, Las Niñas Quispe / The Quispe Girls. Produced by Pablo and Juan Larraín, winners of the Golden Tulip at the 20th Istanbul Festival with Tony Manero and nominated for an Oscar with No, The Quispe Girls tells the story of an actual incident that took place in Chile in 1974. The film won Best Cinematography at the Venice Film Festival.
Kid’s Menu
The “Kid’s Menu” section presents a selection of the best children’s films from well-regarded family friendly works from international children’s film festivals. Screenings will be held on weekends at the Nişantaşı CityLife (City’s), Feriye ve Rexx theatres throughout the festival and the films will be simultaneously dubbed in Turkish.
This section of the programme will include Thierry Ragobert’s Amazonia, a 3D film lead by a lost monkey in the forest; Esben Toft Jacobsen’s also 3D film, Beyond Beyond, chronicling a rabbit looking for his mother in a magical land; and Marc Boreal and Thibaut Chatel’s Ma maman est en Amérique, elle a rencontré Buffalo Bill / My Mommy Is in America and She Met Buffalo Bill, an award-winner at the Annecy Animation Festival, for the festivals young participants and their families.
Certified Copy
At the “Certified Copy” section, the restored and unearthed lost or worn classics of World cinema will meet with the audience.
Volker Schlöndorff’s Baal, which hasn’t seen the light of day in 40 years, is a cult classic. A cinematic adaptation of Bertol Brecht’s play from 1918, famous director Rainer Weiner Fassbinder plays himself, as well as the debauched poet Grabbe. Shown on television for the first time in 1970, the film was never again seen. Schlöndorff’s 2014 production Diplomacy, which premiered at Berlin, is also part of the festival programme.
Winner of the Locarno Jury Prize in 1973, Le Cousin Jules / Cousin Jules, is regarded as director Dominique Benicheti’s best film. Fitting into multiple genre categories, including documentary, cinema verite, and minimal cinema, the film obsessively captures a French couple–blacksmith Jules Guiteaux and his wife Félicie–over their rigid routine of 80 years. An unusual document of a film, dealing with themes of intimacy, nature, relationships, and agriculture, Cousin Jules has found its way back into theatres for the first time after 40 years following its restoration.
Known for the horror classic The Exorcist, William Friedkin’s thriller-adventure Sorcerer, which won the 1978 Best Sound Oscar, hasn’t been screened in years due to legal battles between production and distribution companies. Friedkin’s favorite among his own work, Sorcerer was first screened at the 2013 Venice Film Festival following its restoration. Tangerine Dream rose to international fame after scoring this film, dubbed by some critics as the biggest masterpiece of the ’70s.
In Memoriam
The festival’s “In Memoriam” section brings together the films of the masters that we have recently lost.
The festival will remember Tuncel Kurtiz with Zeki Ökten’s film, Sürü / The Herd. An epic film, detailing a local clan’s transition and slow demise after migrating from the country to the big city, was written by Yılmaz Güney and scored by Zülfü Livaneli. The programme will also include Otobüs / The Bus, starring Tuncel Kurtiz, in its section What A Pair. We will be remembering this master actor with two of his films at the festival.
Patrice Chéreau, who passed away in October 2013, will be remembered with one of the pinnacles of his career, winner of the 1994 Jury Prize at Cannes, La Reine Margot / Queen Margot. An adaptation of the novel by Alexandre Dumas, the film focuses on the bloody war between the Catholics and Protestants in France in the second half of the 16th century.
Winning seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture in 1962, David Lean’s epic masterpiece Lawrence of Arabia is one of the first films that comes to mind when talking about the enchanting power of watching film in the theatre. Centred on British officer and secret agent T.E. Lawrence’s role in the Arab Uprising during World War I, Lawrence of Arabia is a perennial on the lists of the greatest films of all time. The festival will pay tribute to the great actor Peter O’Toole, who passed away last December, with his star making turn.
The festival will remember Bigas Luna with Jamón Jamón, his highly controversial film that paved the way for Penelope Cruz’s stardom.
In memory of Hungarian director Miklos Jancso, his unusual war film Csillagosok, katonák / The Red and The White will be screened at the festival.
Newly departed actor and director Harold Ramis will be saluted with his now cult film Groundhog Day.
As homage to Philip Seymour Hoffman, Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master will be screened at the festival. Hoffman was nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar with his performance.
Winner of the critics circle FIPRESCI Award and the Alfred Bauer New Visions Silver Bear Award, French New Wave’s master Alain Resnais’ latest film, Aimer, Boire et Chanter / Life of Riley, is the director’s third adaptation from British playwright Alan Ayckbourn. (The first two were the 1993 production Smoking/No Smoking and the 2006 production Coeurs / Private Fears In Public Places.) The film focuses on a tight group of friends finding out and reacting to the fact that one of them has only a few months left to live.
FESTIVAL ACCREDITATION AND HOSPITALITY CENTRE
The Istanbul Film Festival’s accreditation and hospitality centre is again located in Akbank Sanat and will be open for all the accredited film professionals and press members throughout the festival.
FESTIVAL MOVIE THEATRES AND SCREENING TIMES
Festival screenings will take place at 5 movie theatres: Atlas and Beyoğlu in Beyoğlu, CityLife (City’s) in Nişantaşı, Feriye in Ortaköy and Rexx in Kadıköy, as well as Istanbul Modern and Pera Museum halls.
FESTIVAL TICKETS GO ON SALE ON SATURDAY, 22 MARCH
The 33rd Istanbul Film Festival tickets will be on sale at 10.00 on Saturday, 22 March. The tickets can be purchased through:
Biletix Sales Channels,
Biletix Call Centre (0216 556 98 00),
Biletix web site (www.biletix.com) and
Main box offices at festival theatres Atlas and Rexx movie theatres.
Ticket prices for the 33rd Istanbul Film Festival are 16 TL, student and senior (over 65) are 11 TL except 21.30 screenings and the first screenings of Akbank Galas section. The first screenings of Akbank Galas at Atlas Movie Theatre are 20 TL. Off-price tickets for daytime screenings continue this year. All screenings at Istanbul Modern and Pera Museum as well as the week day daytime screenings (11.00, 13.30 and 16.00) at the other movie theatres are 6 TL only.
Film screening times are: 11.00, 13.30, 16.00, 19.00 and 21.30. In the “Midnight Madness” section of the festival, a film will be screened every Friday and Saturday at 24.00 throughout the festival.
Lowest ticket prices for Tulip Card Holders
Tulip Card holders enjoy the pre-sale and special discounts of the festival. Pre-sale for Tulip Card members will start on Tuesday, 18 March. Black Tulip Card members can purchase the festival tickets on 18 March and White, Red, and Yellow Tulip Card members on 19, 20 and 21 March from festival theatres Atlas, Rexx, Tulip Card Communication Centre and Biletix web site.
Special Advantages for Axess Card holders
Festival Sponsor Akbank presents special advantages to Axess Card holders. Axess Card holders have a 20% special discount for the festival tickets except for the week day morning sessions.
LOOKING AT THE FESTIVAL PROGRAMME…
The festival brochure including the detailed information about the festival films, screening times and events can be purchased as of Saturday, 15 March at festival movie theatres for 5 TL.
The festival programme can be seen at the official festival web site film.iksv.org/en and through İKSV Mobile application available for download at AppStore and Google Play Store for free.
The festival news, interviews with the directors of the competition films and further updates can be followed on the festival blog as well as the Facebook, Twitter pages in March and April.
Giannis Fragoulis
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