Flying Broom Int’l Women’s Film Festival kicks off

ANKARA

The 24th Flying Broom International Women’s Film Festival will bring national and international women’s films together with moviegoers until June 11.

A meeting was held for the festival on May 27 to launch the festival.

Organized with the theme “Out of Limbo,” the festival awards, which are given to emphasize the importance of women’s labor in cinema and encourage a new generation of women filmmakers, will be presented at the ceremony to be held in Ankara on June 4.

Within the scope of the festival, the films will be shown until June 11 with the contributions of the Culture and Tourism Ministry’s General Directorate of Cinema and nearly 20 nongovernmental organizations, especially by the Ankara Metropolitan Municipality and the Ankara City Council.

Speaking at the press conference held at the Gençlik Park, Halime Güner, the chairman of the Flying Broom Foundation, stated that they were happy to see the increasing number of women in cinema and that they would continue to fight for gender equality.

“During the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, we saw that the burden on women was increasing day by day as well as domestic violence and abuse. Women suffered the burden of the pandemic twice. We saw that women’s poverty increased significantly,” she said.

Güner said that they were working with the Ankara Municipality’s Women Counseling Center for the women who were forced to marry at a young age in a village of the capital and that they saw the problems of women and therefore named the theme of this year’s festival as “Out of Limbo.”

Festival Director Azize Tan also gave information about the festival program.

“We will organize the first week of the festival online and the second week physically. We will have a total of 16 films and tickets can be bought every day. All ticket information can be accessed at ucansupurge.org.tr. Viewers will be able to buy all the 16 films until May 29 if they want to buy them at once,” she said.

Stating that they will hold the opening ceremony of the festival, which started last night online, on June 4, Tan said: “This year the honorary awards will go to actress Nur Sürer and actress-singer Zuhal Olcay; the Bilge Olgaç Achievement Awards to actress-singer Ayta Sözeri, actress Demet Evgar, musician Ekin Fil and Meetings on the Bridge Director Gülin Üstün; and the Young Witch Award to actress Ahsen Eroğlu.”

Tan also stated that 12 films would be evaluated by the association jury in a section titled “Each Different Color,” which will be awarded by the International Association of Film Critics.

“The festival, which was held online last year due to COVID-19, will be held until June 3 this year with online screenings. The festival will take place physically between June 4 and June 11 at Doğan Taşdelen Contemporary Arts Center and CerModern. We are waiting for the audience in physical venues as of June 4. Film production decreased due to the pandemic, but we found some excellent films produced by women,” Tan said.

International films from the countries such as England, America and Lebanon will meet with the audience at the festival.

“Nomadland,” directed by Chinese director Chloe Zhao and which won the best film, best director and best actress awards at the Oscars this year, is one of the films that will be screened at the festival.