Ankara Film Festival ready to hit screens
ANKARA
‘A SMALL SEPTEMBER ISSUE’
The 25th Ankara International Film Festival, organized by the World Mass Media Research Foundation. This year’s theme has been determined as “Memorylessness.” This event will be held between June 5 and 15.During that period, the streets and square of Ankara will be decorated with visuals from Turkish cinema celebrating its century anniversary. The festival will present a selection of five war movies linked to the 100th year of World War I as well as a special section for Romanian cinema and a film section from Portuguese, Spanish, Brazilian and Mexican cinemas.
In Turkey’s only film festival to pioneer Video Art screenings, there will also be a selection named “40 videos from 40 years of Turkish video art” in the 40th year of Turkish video.
As a tribute for William Shakespeare’s 450th birthday, Orson Welles’ film “Othello” will be shown. The Ankara Film Festival will be one of the first international festivals screening the restored copy of the movie.
Due to the 25th year of the festival, people who have previously won awards, worked as jury members or contributed to the festival, will be congratulated with gratitude plaques. Stars and directors of the festival films will attend, as well as guests from Poland, France, Romania, the United States, Ukraine and Australia.
The World Mass Media Research Foundation will give its special awards to three names this year, retribution for their contributions to the Turkish culture and arts scene. The Aziz Nesin Labor Award will be given to veteran actress Hülya Koçyiğit while the Mass Media Award will go to the Sevda-Cenap. The Music Foundation and the Tree of Arts Award are to be offered to the famous ballerina Meriç Sürmen. These prizes will be handed out on the opening night of the festival on June 5th.
National films to compete
That being said, the most attractive section of the festival is the National Film Competition. Ten motion pictures, selected from 35 applications, will be competing for the festival’s grand award.
The films are Ramin Matin’s “Kusursuzlar” (The Impeccables), Ferit Karahan’s “Cennetten Kovulmak” (The Fall From Heaven), Zeynep Dadak and Merve Kayan’s “Mavi Dalga” (Blue Wave), Kerem Deren’s “Bi Küçük Eylül Meselesi” (A Small September Issue), Reha Erdem’s “Şarkı Söyleyen Kadınlar” (Singing Women), Kazım Öz’s “Bir Varmış Bir Yokmuş” (Once Upon A Time), Atıl İnaç’s “Daire” (Circle), Hakkı Kurtuluş and Melik Saraçoğlu’s “Gözümün Nuru” (Eye Am), Cemil Ağacıkoğlu’s “Özür Dilerim” (Forgive Me) and Faysal Soysal’s “Üç Yol” (Crossroads).
Among the other selected movies to be screened will be Polish director Andrzej Wajda’s new film “Walesa,” Canadian young director Xavier Dolan’s 2013 film “Tom at the Farm,” British David Mackenzie’s BAFTA awarded “Starred Up,” Terry Gilliam’s “Brazil,” Romanian animation documentary “Crulic The Path to Beyond,” Spanish director Pablo Berger’s “Blancanieves” and French director Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s “The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet.”
The film showings will take place at the Goethe Institute and Büyülü Fener Movie Theater.