Ankara welcomes film festival
Güncelleme Tarihi:
Hurriyet Daily News
Oluşturulma Tarihi: Mart 12, 2009 00:00
ANKARA - The 20th Ankara International Film Festival kicks off tomorrow with an opening ceremony honoring the legendary musician Muammer Sun and veteran actor Macit Koper.
Ankara is welcoming spring with its 20th International Film Festival. The festival will start tomorrow with the opening ceremony and honorary awards, and it will end March 22 with the announcement of the competition winners.
The Ankara International Film Festival, organized by the World Mass Media Research Foundation, will run feature films, documentaries and shorts from Turkey, all competing in their respective categories.
Festival director Can Özgün recently announced the two names and one institution selected for this year’s honorary awards. Renowned composer and music educator for four decades, Muammer Sun, will receive the Lifetime Achievement award, while veteran actor Macit Koper will take home the Aziz Nesin Honorary Award. The Mass Media award will go to Middle East Technical University’s Audio Visual Arts Center, or GİSAM.
The festival will screen two films by Polish director Krzysztof Zanussi, one of which is the Turkey premiere of "Serce na dloni" (And a Warm Heart), a tragic look at class differences in Poland.
National films in the competition
This year, 10 films will be competing for the national competition. Director Cemal Şan will compete with two films, the last two in his trilogy. "Dilber’in Sekiz Günü" (Dilber’s Eight Days) and "Ali’nin Sekiz Günü" (Ali’s Eight Days) both films will tell the stories of a young woman, Dilber, in Southeast Turkey who falls in love with the wrong man, Ali.
Selim Evci’s debut feature "İki Çizgi" (Two Lines) will look at the upheavals of urban relationships. Experienced TV director Raşit Çelikezer will compete with "Gökten Üç Elma Düştü" (Three Apples Fell from the Sky), which won the Best Film and Screenplay awards in the recent Bursa Silk Road Film Festival. Part documentary, part drama, newcomer İsmail Necmi’s debut feature, "Bunu Gerçekten Yapmalı mıyım?" (Should I Really Do It?) will blur the lines between reality and fiction.
Other films competing will be documentary director Hüseyin Karabey’s international award-winner "Gitmek" (My Marlon and Brando), Özcan Alper’s "Sonbahar," (Autumn), which won top awards at the recent national awards ceremony, Kazım Öz’s "Fırtına" (The Storm), Tolga Örnek’s "Devrim Arabası" (The Cars of the Revolution), which was shut out of the national competition in the coming Istanbul International Film Festival, and Jacques Deschamps’s "Dinle Neyden" (Listen from the Nay: Separations), an 18th century story set in a Mevlevi lodge.
There will be 25 films competing for the National Documentary competition and 40 for the National Short Film competition. This year’s jury will include some acclaimed names, including directors Handan İpekçi, Mustafa Altıoklar, Ali Taner Baltacı, cinematographer Candan Murat Özcan, cartoonist Tan Oral, Sinema magazine’s editor-in-chief Senem Erdine İşmen, and academics Professor Oğuz Onaran and Barış Kılıçbay.
This year will be especially rich for short films, with around 100 shorts available for audiences. "Two Continents, Two Countries: From Asia to America Ğ from Mexico to Iran" will feature 13 short films from the two countries. "Shorts Without Limits" will feature 23 films from as diverse places as Hungary, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, South Korea, Germany, Greece, Australia, Croatia, Armenia and Canada. A special section, "Spain: Don Quijotes of Short Film," will be devoted to shorts from Spain.
Collection of films about Roman people
"From All Over the World" will screen award-winning feature films and festival-favorites from, well, all over the world, including British director Mike Leigh’s latest "Happy-Go-Lucky," Mexican director Rodrigo Pla’s "Desierto Adentro" (The Desert Within), and "Avaze gonjeshk-ha" (The Song of Sparrows) by Iranian director Majid Majidi. "The Future Lasts Forever" will screen a collection on films about Roma people. This section will feature films from Turkey, Balkans and one from Yugoslavia, dating back to 1967.
The festival will officially kick off not with the opening ceremony but with the departure of the Festival Train from Istanbul Haydarpaşa Train Station on March 12, carrying guests from Istanbul to Ankara. The films will be screened at Kızılay Büyülü Fener and Çankaya Municipality’s Contemporary Arts Center. Shorts and documentaries will be free-of-charge.
For more information, check the festival’s web site at www.filmfestankara.org.tr.
The Ankara International Film Festival, organized by the World Mass Media Research Foundation, will run feature films, documentaries and shorts from Turkey, all competing in their respective categories.
Festival director Can Özgün recently announced the two names and one institution selected for this year’s honorary awards. Renowned composer and music educator for four decades, Muammer Sun, will receive the Lifetime Achievement award, while veteran actor Macit Koper will take home the Aziz Nesin Honorary Award. The Mass Media award will go to Middle East Technical University’s Audio Visual Arts Center, or GİSAM.
The festival will screen two films by Polish director Krzysztof Zanussi, one of which is the Turkey premiere of "Serce na dloni" (And a Warm Heart), a tragic look at class differences in Poland.
National films in the competition
This year, 10 films will be competing for the national competition. Director Cemal Şan will compete with two films, the last two in his trilogy. "Dilber’in Sekiz Günü" (Dilber’s Eight Days) and "Ali’nin Sekiz Günü" (Ali’s Eight Days) both films will tell the stories of a young woman, Dilber, in Southeast Turkey who falls in love with the wrong man, Ali.
Selim Evci’s debut feature "İki Çizgi" (Two Lines) will look at the upheavals of urban relationships. Experienced TV director Raşit Çelikezer will compete with "Gökten Üç Elma Düştü" (Three Apples Fell from the Sky), which won the Best Film and Screenplay awards in the recent Bursa Silk Road Film Festival. Part documentary, part drama, newcomer İsmail Necmi’s debut feature, "Bunu Gerçekten Yapmalı mıyım?" (Should I Really Do It?) will blur the lines between reality and fiction.
Other films competing will be documentary director Hüseyin Karabey’s international award-winner "Gitmek" (My Marlon and Brando), Özcan Alper’s "Sonbahar," (Autumn), which won top awards at the recent national awards ceremony, Kazım Öz’s "Fırtına" (The Storm), Tolga Örnek’s "Devrim Arabası" (The Cars of the Revolution), which was shut out of the national competition in the coming Istanbul International Film Festival, and Jacques Deschamps’s "Dinle Neyden" (Listen from the Nay: Separations), an 18th century story set in a Mevlevi lodge.
There will be 25 films competing for the National Documentary competition and 40 for the National Short Film competition. This year’s jury will include some acclaimed names, including directors Handan İpekçi, Mustafa Altıoklar, Ali Taner Baltacı, cinematographer Candan Murat Özcan, cartoonist Tan Oral, Sinema magazine’s editor-in-chief Senem Erdine İşmen, and academics Professor Oğuz Onaran and Barış Kılıçbay.
This year will be especially rich for short films, with around 100 shorts available for audiences. "Two Continents, Two Countries: From Asia to America Ğ from Mexico to Iran" will feature 13 short films from the two countries. "Shorts Without Limits" will feature 23 films from as diverse places as Hungary, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, South Korea, Germany, Greece, Australia, Croatia, Armenia and Canada. A special section, "Spain: Don Quijotes of Short Film," will be devoted to shorts from Spain.
Collection of films about Roman people
"From All Over the World" will screen award-winning feature films and festival-favorites from, well, all over the world, including British director Mike Leigh’s latest "Happy-Go-Lucky," Mexican director Rodrigo Pla’s "Desierto Adentro" (The Desert Within), and "Avaze gonjeshk-ha" (The Song of Sparrows) by Iranian director Majid Majidi. "The Future Lasts Forever" will screen a collection on films about Roma people. This section will feature films from Turkey, Balkans and one from Yugoslavia, dating back to 1967.
The festival will officially kick off not with the opening ceremony but with the departure of the Festival Train from Istanbul Haydarpaşa Train Station on March 12, carrying guests from Istanbul to Ankara. The films will be screened at Kızılay Büyülü Fener and Çankaya Municipality’s Contemporary Arts Center. Shorts and documentaries will be free-of-charge.
For more information, check the festival’s web site at www.filmfestankara.org.tr.