!f Istanbul’s awards go to two movies

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News

Joshua Oppenheimer’s ‘The Act of Killing’ received the SİYAD Award at the !f Istanbul Film Festival and ‘Neighboring Sounds’ (below) won the Keş!f Jury Award.

The 12th !f Istanbul International Independent Film Festival ended on Feb. 24 with an award ceremony at BackYard. The big award of the festival’s competition section, the Keş!f Jury Award, went to Kleber Mendonca Filho, the director of “Neighboring Sounds,” a film that brought a different perspective to
present-day Brazil.

This year, nine films from 11 countries competed for the Keş!f Jury Award, the jury of which was made up of Meltem Cumbul, Richard Peña, Miguel Gomes, Marianne Slot and Denis Cote. Filho was announced as the “most inspiring director of the year” as he received the award.

SİYAD Award

The Turkish Film Critics Association (SİYAD) Award was presented to Joshua Oppenheimer for his film, “The Act of Killing.”

The SİYAD Jury, comprised of Ceylan Özçelik, Çağdaş Günerbüyük and Yeşim Tabak, chose “The Act of Killing” for “its creative method to include the power of fiction in the limits of documentary.” The documentary film also won the Ecumenical Jury Award and the Audience Award in the recent Berlin Film
Festival’s Panorama section.

Another award from the night was the Audience Award, which was presented to the films in the Shorts from Turkey section, where 18 short films were screened. Nazlı Elif Durlu’s film “Sonra” (Later) won the first prize while Akile Nazlı Kaya’s “Dünyayı Kurtarmaya Çalışanlar” (The People who try to Save the World) received the second prize and Yıldıray Yıldırım’s “1982” won the third award in this section.

The 12th !f Istanbul International Independent Film Festival screened over 80 films this year, which were viewed by 70,000 people. The festival will hit the road on Feb. 28 for Ankara and will end in İzmir on March 3.