Istanbul Film Festival celebrates 40th anniversary

ISTANBUL

The Istanbul Film Festival, Turkey’s leading film event, is celebrating its 40th anniversary edition and will be held between April 1 and June 29.

This year the festival’s program is comprising the highlights of world cinema, the most extensive showcase of recent Turkish productions, awarded films that premiered in recent international festivals, classics and new discoveries, masterpieces by legendary directors as well as cult films will be on view during the three months ahead.

The screenings will begin on April 1 on the streaming platform of the festival at filmonline.iksv.org. New titles will be open for streaming each Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday through April and May, during which films included in the program of National Competition, National Documentary Competition and National Short Film Competition will be screened in movie theaters and online depending on the changing conditions of the pandemic.

In June, the festival audience will be able to watch films featuring in International Competition and the Galas both at open-air venues, movie theaters and online.

To the extent that the restrictions and measures taken for the pandemic allow, guest directors and actors/actresses from Turkey or abroad will be invited to introduce the festival screenings.

The Cinema Honorary Awards presented by the festival to honor artists with committed contributions to Turkish cinema will be bestowed this year to Çetin İnanç, also known as “the speedy director,” stage and film actress Suna Selen, stage and film actor Salih Güney, and singer, actress and dubbing artist Belkıs Özener. The awards will be presented to the recipients at the award ceremony to take place on May 29.

Organized within the frame of the Istanbul Film Festival for the 16th time, Meetings on the Bridge, a co-production, training and networking platform, will be held online between April 7 and 9. The platform will bring producers, directors and scriptwriters from Turkey and neighboring countries together with international cinema professionals.

The recipients of Meetings on the Bridge Workshop Awards will be announced in the award ceremony to be held online on April 9.

The first screenings of the 40th edition will begin online on April 1 on filmonline.iksv.org. Films to be screened within the April Selection include “The Mole Agent,” “Sundays,” “The Last Bath,” “A friendly Tale,” “Possessor,” “Luzzu,” “I Never Cry,” “The Monopoly of Violence,” “The People Upstairs,” “The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be Quiet,” “After Love,” “Dear Comrades!” “The Killing of Two Lovers,” “Falling,” “Love Affair(s),” “In the Mirror,” “180 Degree Rule,” “The Flood Won’t Come,” “Virpi Suutari” and “The Silences of the Palace.”

This year the national competitions will be held between May 20 and 29, and International Competition between May 18 and June 28. The award-winning films of the National Competition, the National Documentary Competition, and the National Short Film Competition will be announced at the award ceremony to be held on May 29.
At the International Competition section of the festival to be held between June 18 and 28, films that open up “new perspectives on cinema” will compete for the grand prize of the festival, the Golden Tulip.

Films produced within the 2020-21 season will compete for the Golden Tulip at the National Competition to be held between May 20 and 29.

The National Competition Jury will present prizes in nine categories: Best Film, Best Director, Special Jury Prize, Best Actress, Best Actor, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Editing and Best Original Score.

Hitchcock in color

This year the focus of the special retrospective section of the film festival will feature Alfred Hitchcock. The 15 color feature films of the genius director, which could not be screened last year due to the pandemic, will be shown in movie theatres in June from their restored copies. “Rope,” “Under Capricorn,” “Dial M for Murder,” “Rear Window,” “To Catch A Thief,” “The Trouble with Harry,” “The Man Who Knew Too Much,” “Vertigo,” “North by Northwest,” “The Birds,” “Marnie,” “Torn Curtain,” “Topaz,” “Frenzy” and “Family Plot” will be the films in this section.