In 23 sections of the festival a total of 226 films by 274 directors from 66 countries were screened at 6 movie theatres in 529 sessions which were attended by 140 thousand festivalgoers. In the course of 16 days, cinephiles enjoyed 4 master classes that featured festival guests, 3 panel sessions, one of which was held in collaboration with the 13th Istanbul Biennial, film screenings presented by directors, producers or actors of the films, and 2 workshops and 9 panel discussions which were held as part of Meetings on the Bridge.
Supporters of the festival
In addition to the festival sponsor Akbank, the 32nd Istanbul Film Festival was made possible by contributions from theme sponsors Efes, Sabah Newspaper, NTV, Sinema-TV, Jameson, Malaysia Airlines, Nescafe Gold and tv2. This year, Republic of Turkey Ministry of Culture and Tourism provided major support for the festival while Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality and Beyoğlu Municipality continued their promotional support. Martı Istanbul Hotel was the accommodation sponsor and Arçelik served as the technological product sponsor. The 8th Meetings on the Bridge was sponsored by Efes for the first time this year. Leading Sponsor Eczacıbaşı Holding, Official Airline Turkish Airlines, Official Communications Sponsor Vodafone, Official Carrier DHL Express, and Service Sponsor GFK continued their supports for the festival in addition to their supports for all IKSV festivals.
Istanbul Film Festival continued to reintroduce vital works of Turkish cinema to audiences as part of the Special Screenings: Turkish Classics which was founded six years ago with sponsorship from Groupama. This year the section presented Lütfi Ö. Akad’s unforgettable 1968 melodrama
“Vesikalı Yarim /My Prostitute Love” starring İzzet Günay and Türkan Şoray in a copy restored by Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University Prof. Sami Şekeroğlu Cinema-TV Center.
Honorary Awards
During the opening ceremony, the Honorary Awards of the festival were presented to veterans of Turkish cinema; actors Lale Belkıs and Ahmet Mekin, cinematographer Aytekin Çakmakçı and screenwriter Ayşe Şasa. President of the 32nd Istanbul Film Festival Golden Tulip International Competition Jury, Peter Weir(Dead Poets Society, Green Card, The Truman Show) was presented with an Honorary Award at the closing ceremony held on Sunday, April 14. The Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to master director Costa-Gavras (Missing, Z, Eden is West) on Sunday, April 7 at Atlas Cinema.
New Award at the festival: Seyfi Teoman Best Debut Film Award
This year a new award was introduced in addition to the Golden Tulip International and National Competition awards, the Film Award of The Council Of Europe (FACE), FIPRESCI Award, and Radikal People's Choice Awards. All debut films from Turkey in the Golden Tulip International and National Competitions, Out of Competition and New Turkish Cinema sub-categories within the Turkish Cinema section, as well as the Human Rights in Cinema section of the festival were eligible for the Seyfi Teoman Best Debut Film Award which was established to honor the memory of gone too soon director, writer and producer Seyfi Teoman. The jury for the award included director Emin Alper, actress Saadet Aksoy, and film critic Rüdiger Suchsland. The winner for the Seyfi Teoman Best Debut Film Award, Köksüz / Nobody’s Home by Deniz Akçay Katıksız received a cash prize of 30,000 TL contributed by CMYLMZ Fikirsanat.
For the list of 32nd Istanbul Film Festival awards: http://film.iksv.org/en/archive/newsarchive/p/1/705
Special Sections
This year, the roster of Istanbul Film Festival included several special sections such as Stories of Women, which was dedicated to productions from around the world that focused on women’s issues, returning after a long absence From Literature to Silver Screen, and Am I Not a Citizen? – Barbarism, Civic Awakening and the City, in collaboration with the 13th Istanbul Biennial.
Is Reality A Miracle? : Carlos Reygadas featured all full length films and two shorts by the prominent Mexican director Carlos Reygadas, who gave a master class during the Festival.
The classical sections of the festival such as Akbank Galas, From the World of Festivals, Masters, New Visions, Documentary Time With NTV, Mined Zone, Midnight Madness, Kids’ Menu were once again popular with the festivalgoers.
Guests of the festival
This year, Istanbul Film Festival hosted a list of distinguished guests. Throughout the 16 days of the festival, in addition to Costa-Gavras, Peter Weir, Mike Figgis, Carlos Reygadas, Bille August, Istanbul was visited by Laurent Cantet, Tony Krawitz, Nanouk Leopold, Eva Neymann, Darezhan Omirbayev, whose films competed in the International Competition section, and Marco Bechis, Simon Brook, Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Pip Chodorov, Markus Imhoof, Hermann Vaske, Dan Setton whose films were screened as part of Documentary Time With NTV. Many directors such as Peter Brosens, Jean-Pierre Améris, Solveig Anspach, Danis Tanovic, Paul Poet, George Sluizer, Malgoska Szumowska, Srdan Golubovic, Nicolas Wackerbarth, David Siegel, Scott McGehee, Calin Peter Netzer, Gonzalo Tobal, Gilles Bourdos, Gabriela Pichler, Enrique Rivero, Lucy Mulloy, Anais Barbeau-Lavalette and Annemarie Jacir, Sean Baker, and Jan Ole Gerster were at the festival to present their films. The list of guests included actors such as Patricia Arquette, Stephen Dorff, Barbara Sukowa, Mustafa Nadarevic and Mateusz Kosciukiewicz.
116 screenings out of a total of 529 were held with the attendance of directors, producers and actors who presented their films before the screenings and afterwards took questions from the audience.
Representatives of international film festivals such as Venice, Sundance, Cannes, Thessaloniki, Moscow, Hamburg, Batumi, Paris, Gothenburg, Sarajevo, Sofia, Amiens, Tbilisi, Locarno, and Yerivan were among over 300 guests of the festival.
Directors Talk
SİYAD (Film Critics’ Association of Turkey) member and film critic Ceyda Aşar conducted interviews with some of the directors of the films that were screened in and out of the competition. The interviews are available on the official website of the festival http://film.iksv.org/en/festivaldaily and include names such as Lenny Abrahamson (What Richard Did), Laurent Cantet (Foxfire), Ziad Doueiri (The Attack), Yılmaz Erdoğan(Kelebeğin Rüyası /The Butterfly’s Dream), Tony Krawitz (Dead Europe), Nanouk Leopold (It’s All So Quiet), Eva Neymann (House With A Turret), Darezhan Omirbayev (Student), Aslı Özge(Hayatboyu / Lifelong), Ali Aydın(Küf /Mold), Anais Barbeau-Lavalette (Inch’allah),Lucy Mulloy (One Night), Danis Tanovic (An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker), Cemil Ağacıkoğlu(Özür Dilerim / Forgive Me), Deniz Akçay Katıksız(Köksüz / Nobody’s Home), Mahmut Fazıl Coşkun(Yozgat Blues),Lusin Dink (Saroyanland), Can Kılcıoğlu (Karnaval), UğurYücel (Cold), Derviş Zaim (The Cycle), Jean-Pierre Améris (The Man Who Laughs),Mustafa Nadarevic (When Day Breaks).
Big Praise for Turkish Cinema
Over 40 fiction and documentary films were shown at the festival in the Turkish Cinema section, which has been sponsored by Efes for the last 26 years, and its subcategories of National Competition, Out of Competition, New Turkish Cinema, Documentaries, and Hisar Short Film Selection. The Golden Tulip National Competition was noteworthy for the films that made their premieres at the festival. The competition included 2 films making their Turkish premieres and 6 films making their world premieres. Many Turkish films in the programme received invitations from the representatives of international film festivals worldwide.
Other Events
Festival parties and receptions also drew big crowds. The party at Roxy hosted by Akbank following the opening ceremony and the party at Sofa Hotel hosted by Efes following the closing ceremony were huge hits. At a special evening held at Nişantaşı Park Şamdan Restaurant on Friday, 29 March, supporting organizations and institutions of the 32nd Istanbul Film Festival were presented with plaques of appreciation.
The traditional boat excursion for the guests of the festival was organized once again this year.
The hugely popular Jameson festival party which took place at Nupera with sponsorship by the festival theme sponsor Jameson Irish Whiskey started with a live musical performance by director Mike Figgis and his wife Rosey Chan. Baba Zula DJ’ed at the party held on April 8 at Babylon Lounge following the screening of Balkan Spirit from the Documentary Time with NTV section.
Master classes and panel sessions in the festival were also very popular with the festival audience. Master classes given by The Golden Tulip International Competition Jury President Peter Weir, Lifetime Achievement Award honoree Costa-Gavras, Mike Figgis, and Carlos Reygadas also proved popular by festivalgoers. Other highlight events of the festival was the panel discussion Documentaries and Crowd-funding held with the participation of documentary directors and producers, and meetings with Pip Chodorov and Heinz-Peter Schwerfel where they discussed experimental cinema. The film programme Am I Not a Citizen? – Barbarism, Civic Awakening and the City, which was held in collaboration between the 32nd Istanbul Film Festival and the 13th Istanbul Biennial, was curated by Fulya Erdemci and Yael Messer. The speakers who attended the event were Paul Poet, the director of Foreigners out! Schlingensief’s Container which was screened as part of the programme, Dimitry Vilensky, the member of the ChtoDelat (What Is To Be Done) collective who wrote and directed the film The Tower: A Songspiel, and the member of Istanbul Film Festival Documentary Advisory Board, director Berke Baş.
Meetings on the Bridge
Sponsored by Efes, the 8th edition of Istanbul Film Festival’s Meetings on the Bridge continued to create opportunities for local and international producers, directors, screenwriters to make the first international presentations of their long feature projects by bringing them together with representatives from various institutions. Project owners had the chance to meet with representatives from Eurimages, Berlinale, Cannes Film Festival Cinéfondation, Eave, Israel Film Fund, Bingerlab, Sundance Film Festival, CNC, Medienboard, Arte, Venice Film Festival, Georgian Film Center, Polish Film Institute, Wild Bunch, ep2c, Memento Film, Holland Film Market, and Cinelink. Established in 2011 as a collaborative effort between Istanbul Film Festival, and Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg and Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein Film Fund to provide support for co-productions between Turkey and Germany, Turkish-German Coproduction Development Fund decided this year to give support to 6 projects.
Work in Progress, a workshop designed to support films in production and open to long feature and documentary Turkish films which are mid-way through principal photography or in post-production, was organized for the second time as part of Meetings on the Bridge. This year, there were 159 applications for the 5th edition of the Film Development Workshop. The selected projects from Work in Progress and Film Development workshops received their prizes at a ceremony held on April 11 at the French Palace.
For the award-winners of the Meetings on the Bridge: http://film.iksv.org/en/meetingsonthebridge/614
Next year, Istanbul Film Festival once again will meet with cinephiles in April.
