Festival on Wheels to hit road in capital

The Festival on Wheels, a special event that brings the best in domestic and international cinema to film lovers in a different province of Turkey each year, is set to run from Dec. 2 to 18.

This year’s festival will be in Ankara between Dec. 2 and 8 before heading northeast to the central Black Sea province of Sinop, where it will run from Dec. 9 to 12. The festival then heads to the Aegean, running in İzmir from Dec. 14 to 18.

There are sections dedicated to cinematic masters, new films from Turkey, short film compilations and special screenings that raise social and cultural issues through the medium of film.

Over the last 16 years, the festival has rolled into Ankara, Artvin, Baku, Bursa, Çanakkale, Drama in Greece, Eskişehir, Gaziantep, Istanbul, İzmir, Kars, Kayseri, Malatya, Mersin, Ordu, Samsun, Sarajevo and Tblisi.

Variety in sections

The “World Cinema” selection will screen films that have shown at notable film festivals around the world and have drawn interest. There will also be films on the rebellion and resistance that began last year in Tunisia and have continued in a number of Arab countries.

There will also be a mass screening section including films by the Dardenne Brothers, who shared the Special Jury Prize with Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan at the Cannes Film Festival this year. A screening titled “Films that I Am Jealous of,” presents U.S. cinema works selected by Turkish director Zeki Demirkubuz.

The Festival on Wheels also features “Short is Good,” a collection of short films that were selected from 600 entries that were submitted to festival organizers. Audiences will also have a chance see films in the “Finland in Short” category, which includes short films from the Nordic nation, as well as all the short films made by celebrated director Aki Kaurismaki. The festival will further feature a special section for children’s films.

The directors and artists of feature films made in Turkey in 2011 will also attend the festival galas.

Concept of ‘class’

As in past years, this year’s edition will also include a mobile book fair, which is headlined by “Class,” a new work edited by Tül Akbal Süalp, Aslı Güneş and Nedim Süalp. The book will be released in collaboration with the Ankara Cinema Association and Bağlam Publishing House in December.

The Kızılay Büyülüfener and the Goethe Institute will screen films in Ankara, the Deniz Movie Theater will present the works in Sinop while the Konak Movie Theater will show movies in İzmir.

The Sinop Governor’s Office, Sinop Municipality, the Sinop Culture and Tourism Association and the İzmir Cinema and Visual Arts Association collaborated to co-ordinate the festival, which is organized by the Ankara Cinema Association with contributions by the Culture and Tourism Ministry.

For further information about the festival, please visit www.gezicifestival.org