Tales from Kars is a portmanteau of the five winning short stories in a script competition held as part of the 2007 Festival on Wheels and spearheaded by the Ankara Cinema Association and former mayor of Kars, Naif Alibeyoğlu. With all five shorts shot in Kars, the ensemble was wrapped with post-production support from the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism and has since received invitations from numerous international festivals. The shorts were directed by Özcan Alper, Ülkü Oktay, Ahu Öztürk, Zehra Derya Koç and Emre Akay, who have been instrumental in introducing Kars, one of the farthest flung corners of Turkey, to the rest of the world.
Selected for the January 2010 edition of the Rotterdam Film Festival, Tales from Kars followed up its world premiere in the Netherlands with screenings at the Istanbul, Transylvania, Jerusalem and Sarajevo film festivals respectively. In the months ahead, the film is also due to be shown at the Arpa, Vancouver, Beirut, Hamburg, Mumbai, Warsaw and Valencia film festivals.
Tales from Kars is set to be screened on 30 August 2010 within the programme of the European Forum Alpbach, an annual event that takes place in Austria and brings together leaders from all over the world.
