News
from: International Istanbul Film Festival
www.iskv.org/film
Source: Ustungel Inanc
Published: March, 2008

ABOVE: Caramel, directed by Nadine Labaki, was Lebanon's Oscar submission for 2008.

27th International Istanbul Film Festival runs April 5-20

Tickets go on sale March 22

ISTANBUL, TURKEY -- Organised by the İstanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts and sponsored by AKBANK, the 27th International İstanbul Film Festival is fast approaching.

this year's International İstanbul Film Festival, from April 5-20, will feature 200 films in more than 20 sections--including a selection of unforgettable classics and masterpieces of acclaimed directors next to the latest films of 2007 and 2008. As every year, panel discussions and workshops, master classes, exhibitions, receptions, and concerts will take place in the presence of well-known guests from the world of cinema in addition to a number of interesting side events.

Festival Cinemas

AFM Fitaş has joined the ranks of Beyoğlu movie theatres participating in the 27th International İstanbul Film Festival this year. 200 films will be screened at a total of 6 venues, including Emek, Fitaş, Atlas, Atlas 2, Beyoğlu movie theatres in Beyoğlu and Rexx in Kadıköy.

The venue sponsorship for the Atlas Movie Theatre throughout the Festival period has been taken on by Digitürk. Türkmax will set up a "Türkmax Lounge" in the Emek movie theatre's upper foyer, from where it will broadcast interviews with directors, and reflect the colourful Festival moments over the Digitürk platform's Türkmax channel.

Cinema Honorary Awards at the 27th İstanbul Film Festival

Awarded each year to artists who have left their mark on Turkish cinema, the International İstanbul Film Festival's Cinema Honorary Awards will this year be given to three great actors at the opening ceremony of the International İstanbul Film Festival on Friday, April 4: Ekrem Bora, İzzet Günay, and Ediz Hun. In addition, films featuring the honoured artists will be screened at the Festival.

International Competition: The Golden Tulip

Michel Gondry's eagerly anticipated latest film, Be Kind Rewind, is one of the 12 films competing in the International Competition for the Festival's grand prix, the Golden Tulip. The film tells the story of two friends who become famous when they re-make some of cinema's most well-known films, such as 2001: A Space Odyssey and Driving Miss Daisy.

Sweeping almost all prizes at Iceland's Oscar equivalent, the Edda Awards, Baltasar Kormákur's crime and suspense movie Jar City was the greatest box-office success in the country's history.

Adapted from his own novel and awarded both the Grand Prix and the prize for Most Popular Film at the Montreal World Film Festival 2007, Nic Balthazar's Ben-X is one of the contenders for the Golden Tulip.

Semih Kaplanoğlu's film Yumurta / Egg, which premiered at Cannes, and Hüseyin Karabey's film Gitmek / My Marlon and Brando, which had its world premiere at the Rotterdam Film Festival, will represent Turkey in the International Competition this year.

The jury at this year's Golden Tulip Competition will be lead by world-renowned cinematographer Michael Ballhaus, who as the director of photography on a number of Martin Scorsese's films has given important impulses to the director's cinema. The other members of the jury will include Kirsi Tykkylainen, Programme Director of the Moscow International Film Festival; Joan Dupont, film journalist; Selim Eyüpoğlu, scholar & cinema writer; Bent Hamer, director and Pawel Pawlikowski, director.

Turkish Cinema at the Festival

An important supporter of Turkish cinema and film production, Efes Pilsen has once again taken on the sponsorship of Turkish films at the İstanbul Film Festival. Close to 30 fiction and documentary films are placed in the Turkish Cinema section, which brings together Turkish films produced in 2007-2008 and includes the categories National Competition, Out of Competition, and Documentaries.

Film lovers at the İstanbul Film Festival will have a chance to see the world premieres of Derviş Zaim's Nokta, Ümit Ünal's Ara, Mehmet Güreli's Gölge / Shadow, Uygar Asan's Kabuk / Shell and Mehmet Güleryüz's Havar as well as the Turkey premieres of Seyfi Teoman's Tatil Kitabı / Summer Book and Hüseyin Karabey's Gitmek / My Marlon and Brando.

The National Competition jury that will select the Turkish film honours of this year's Festival has been announced. Lead by director Semih Kaplanoğlu, the jury members are Sylvain Auzou, vice president of the Venice Days / Giornate degli Autori section of the Venice Film Festival and manager of the Business Street, the industry event of the Rome Festival, Michèle Maheux, Managing Director of the Toronto Film Festival Group, actress Nurgül Yeşilçay, and writer Elif Şafak.

Council of Europe Film Award (FACE)

Established in 2007, the Council of Europe Film Award (FACE) will be awarded again this year in cooperation with the Council of Europe and Eurimages. In the Festival's closing ceremony on Friday, April 19, the FACE statuette and the prize money of 10,000 Euros will be awarded to one of the contenders in the section "Human Rights in Cinema."

Ten films will compete in the "Human Rights in Cinema" section, among them Israeli director Amos Gitai's latest film Disengagement. British director Marc Munden's powerful film Mark of Cain, which tells the fictional story of soldiers in the Iraq war and that won the Amnesty International-DOEN Award at the Rotterdam International Film Festival, and PVC-1, filmed in Colombia by Greek-born director Spiros Stathoulopoulos, will be among the other films in the section. Analysing the meaninglessness of terrorism and the universality of violence, PVC-1 is shot in a single take. Handan İpekçi represents Turkey in the FACE competition with her film Saklı Yüzler / Hidden Faces.

New Sections at the Festival

• American Independents

One of the Festival's new sections this year is dedicated to recent award-winning, acclaimed films of American cinema. A highlight among the nine films to be screened under the heading "American Independents" will be Smiley Face, the latest film of director Gregg Araki.

Written and directed by Noah Baumbach and the follow-up to his critically acclaimed film The Squid and the Whale, Margot at the Wedding once again revolves round the tragicomic story of a family. The film stars acclaimed actors like Nicole Kidman, Joe Black, and Jennifer Jason Leigh.

Co-authored with Roman Coppola, The Darjeeling Limited, the latest film of Wes Anderson, the accomplished young director of The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and The Royal Tenenbaums, stars Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, and Jason Schwartzman.

Wayne Wang's A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, awarded the Golden Seashell and the prize for Best Actor at the San Sebastián International Film Festival, is also among the section's highlights.

• '68 and Its Legacy

The İstanbul Film Festival commemorates the 40th anniversary of the events of May 1968 and their vast impact on the world's cultural and political landscape with a special section. Sponsored by Bahçeşehir University, "'68 and Its Legacy" will feature a selection of 12 films which – according to the editors of Roll Magazine – reflect the political and social atmosphere of the period and can be described as revolutionary in terms of content as well as form.

Legendary French director Jean-Luc Godard is represented in this section with two different films: Sympathy for the Devil, which resembles a Rolling Stones documentary and has been called "my last bourgeois film" by the director, paints a portrait of 1960s America, while Tout va bien, which stars Yves Montand and Jane Fonda, deals with the years after '68.

The big-screen experience of the legendary road movie Easy Rider, a counterculture treatment of the sense of freedom that 1968 brought in its wake, directed by Dennis Hopper and starring Jack Nicholson and Peter Fonda, will certainly be an opportunity not to miss.

William Klein's exquisite documentary Grands soirs et petits matins with its unique shots capturing the Paris demonstrations in May 68, along with the ironic superhero story Mr. Freedom, is also in this section.

As part of the section, a panel discussing the generation of '68 and its legacy will be organised at Bahçeşehir University on Thursday, April 10. Murat Belge and Ertuğrul Kürkçü are expected to participate in the panel.

An Akbank Gala Every Night of the Festival

Film lovers are invited to Akbank Gala screenings held at 21.30 at Emek Movie Theatre throughout the first week of the Festival.

Depicting different stages of Bob Dylan's life played by six different actors, Todd Haynes' latest film I'm Not There is one of the eagerly anticipated Gala films. Christian Bale, the recently tragically deceased Heath Ledger, Richard Gere, and Ben Whishaw are among the actors playing the part of Bob Dylan in this film, which earned Cate Blanchett an Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actress. Featuring over 30 Dylan songs interpreted by musicians such as Antony & The Johnsons, Sonic Youth, and Yo La Tengo, the film's soundtrack has been greatly acclaimed by critics.

Considered his most accomplished work in the director's chair to date, Into the Wild is the latest film of actor-director Sean Penn. Winner of eight prizes and Oscar nominated in the categories of Best Film Editing and Best Actor, Into the Wild is already being traded as a candidate for the title of "Festival's favourite". Eddie Vedder, the lead singer of Pearl Jam, won a Golden Globe in the category of Best Original Song with his soundtrack for the film.

Michael Haneke's American remake from his own acclaimed 1997 thriller Funny Games is also among gala films to be screened. Funny Games features Naomi Watts, Tim Roth and Michael Pitt.

Elegy, the latest film of Isabel Coixet, the acclaimed director of My Life Without Me and The Secret Life of Words, is an erotic drama. Starring Ben Kingsley, Penélope Cruz, Dennis Hopper, and Debbie Harry, the sexy lead singer of Blondie.

Tamara Jenkins' new film The Savages, which earned Laura Linney an Oscar nomination in the category of Best Actress, is one of the Festival's favourites. The film, which was also nominated for Best Original Screenplay, stars Laura Linney alongside Academy Award winner Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Selections from the Festival Programme

Over 200 films will be screened as part of the 27th International İstanbul Film Festival including:

• Late Michelangelo Antonioni's unforgettable L'Avventura, Edouard Molinaro's hilarious La cage aux folles starring Michel Serrault, and Ingmar Bergman's only horror film--Hour of the Wolf-- are some of the seven films to be screened as part of In Memoriam.

• Among the highlights of the section "Woman Is Her Name" sponsored by 1000 Volt Post-Production are Icíar Bollaín, the director of Take My Eyes, with her film Mataharis, which tells the story of three female detectives in Madrid coming face to face with the secrets of their own private lives, and Julio Medem, familiar to cinephiles from The Lovers of the Arctic Circle, with his film Chaotic Ana.

• Egypt's legendary director Youssef Chahine is featured in the section "From the Caucasus to the Black Sea" with his latest work Chaos, a merciless critique of the Arab world. Also in this section is Lebanon's Oscar submission, Caramel [see photo at top of page] by Nadine Labaki.

Children's Menu

Part of the Festival programme for the past two years and hugely popular with children, the Children's Films section will be continued this year under the sponsorship of Digitürk Children's Club. Five children's films will be shown at Fitaş and Rexx cinemas at weekend mornings throughout the Festival period.

Festival Highlights

• From the World of Festivals

"From the World of Festivals" presents to film lovers 20 of last year's most acclaimed films, including the most recent, often award-winning works of well-known directors.

Alain Corneau, presents a remake of Jean-Pierre Melville's 1966 gangster film The Second Breath. The film's principal roles are played by Daniel Auteuil and Monica Bellucci.

99 Francs, the latest film of Jan Kounen, director of Doberman and Blueberry, is a pointed satire on the advertising industry, equipped with the secret weapons of the world it criticises, entertaining, witty, and quirky. Adapted from the autobiographical novel by Frédéric Beigbeder, the film was well received in France.

Inspired by a true story and starring Julianne Moore, Savage Grace by Tom Kalin, one of New Queer Cinema's most respected directors, relates an extraordinary mother-son relationship. The Inner Life of Martin Frost, the latest film directed by renowned author Paul Auster and starring David Thewlis and Irene Jacob, and Nikita Mikhalkov's remake of 12 Angry Men, titled 12, are also featured in this section.

• Young Masters

Sponsored by Colin's, the Young Masters section features the works of 10 promising young film-makers taking their first steps in the world of cinema. Winner of the Camera d'Or in Cannes 2007, Jellyfish by Israeli directors Shira Geffen and Etgar Keret reflects the complexity of Tel Aviv life through interlacing stories.

One of the section's highlights is Buddha Collapsed Out of Shame, the first feature film of Hana Makhmalbaf, the youngest member of Iran's famous family of directors. Telling the story of a young Afghan girl's efforts to attend school, the film was awarded the Special Jury Prize at San Sebastián and the Paolo Ungari UNICEF Award at the Cinema Rome Film Fest.

Attention, Mined Zone!

Ten films that are pushing boundaries with their experimental narrative techniques are featured in the Festival's by now traditional "Mined Zone" this year, sponsored by Malaysia Airlines. Shot at a pace difficult to keep up with, Takashi Miike's latest film Sukiyaki Western Django is one of the section's eagerly anticipated films. Adapting the cult Western film Django to Japanese culture, Miike tagged his film with the name of a Japanese dish, "sukiyaki." As an additional bonus, Quentin Tarantino makes a cameo appearance in the film.

Help Me Eros, the second feature film directed and co-starred by Lee Kang-sheng, fetish actor of Tsai Ming-liang, is an emotional and erotic story about consumer culture. Kang-sheng was one of the guests of the festival last year.

The Fall, the latest film of commercial and music video director Tarsem Singh, who had offered a glimpse of an entirely new, visually eccentric style in his feature film debut The Cell, again brings to the cinema screen a world in which fantasy and realism are intertwined.

Midnight Madness Continued

Hugely popular in the past, the Festival's Midnight Cinema sponsored by Häagen-Dazs will be continued this year. The screenings will take place at midnight on Friday and Saturday at Fitaş and Atlas movie theatres respectively.

Produced in a collaborative effort by six of the world's favourite graphic artists and illustrators, including Blutch, Charles Burns, Lorenzo Mattotti, and Richard McGuire, the black and white animation film Fear(s) of the Dark is bound to become a classic.

Released thirty years after Suspiria and Inferno as the final part in cult director Dario Argento's "Three Mothers" trilogy, The Third Mother is truly for those who want to be scared. The film stars Asia Argento, alongside her mother Daria Nicolodi and Udo Kier.

Sweeping prizes at international festivals of fantastic cinema, Spain's 2007 Academy Award entry and winner of seven Goya Awards, Juan Antonio Bayona's The Orphanage relates the hair-raising events that happen to a woman and her family when she returns to the orphanage where she had lived as a child.

Challenging the Years

The latest works of 7 directors who are "challenging the years" will be screened in this section of the Festival, sponsored by Dole's dedicated to the world's most respected film-makers.

Among the eagerly anticipated films this year are Christopher Columbus, The Enigma by Manoel de Oliveira, one of the greatest directors alive, who celebrates his one-hundredth birthday this year, and A Girl Cut in Two, the latest offering in Claude Chabrol's fifty-year–long cinematic career.

Also in this section are Fados, the latest work of master director Carlos Saura, who is already familiar to Festival regulars, and Andrzej Wajda's World War II film Katyn, Oscar-nominated in 2008

Documentary Time with NTV

The İstanbul Film Festival's documentary section is once again sponsored by NTV, featuring three documentaries that are must-sees for music lovers. Directed by Steven Sebring and following the cult artist throughout a period of eleven years, Patti Smith: Dream of Life competed at this year's Sundance Festival. Opening film at the Berlin Film Festival, Martin Scorsese's Shine a Light, which combines scenes from the Rolling Stones' New York concert, backstage shots, and archive material, is one of the Festival's eagerly anticipated films.

Julian Schnabel, the director of Academy Award nominated The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, art-directed and filmed the five New York concerts in which Lou Reed performed his Berlin album for the first time. In the concert film Berlin, which is a unique hybrid of cinema, visual arts, and music, Roman Polanski's wife Emmanuelle Seigner plays herself.

The World of Animation

One of the Festival's most popular sections, "The World of Animation" is dedicated this year to the Russian Aleksandr Petrov, famed for his way of combining technique, narrative editing, colour, and composition. Sponsored by T-Box, this section will show all of Petrov's short animation films, including My Love, which was nominated for an Academy Award 2008 in the category of Best Short Animation. Petrov, who uses his fingers to paint each frame of his films individually, won an Oscar in 2000 for his animated short The Old Man and the Sea.

Lost in Illusions: Marc Caro

A special section of this year's Festival is dedicated to the enigmatic world of Marc Caro, whose films, co-authored and co-directed with Jean-Pierre Jeunet, have pushed the boundaries of creativity. His latest, Dante 01, a space / suspense / action story and the director's first film without Jeunet, is featured in the programme alongside Delicatessen and La cité des enfants perdus.

Miloš Forman

The İstanbul Film Festival dedicates a special section to one of cinema's most creative directors: Miloš Forman. Born in Czechoslovakia, Forman emigrated to the US in 1968 and subsequently achieved fame as a master of cinema with his period and biographical films.

Eight films will be screened at the Festival in tribute to Forman, including Amadeus and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, which earned Forman an Academy Award as Best Director, alongside the unforgettable musical Hair and eight times Oscar nominated Ragtime, which deals with the racial, economical, and class unrests of the 1900s.

Nokia Nseries Short Film Competition

The top ten films of the 2nd Nokia Nseries Short Film Competition will be screened at the İstanbul Film Festival. The films placed first, second, and third among nearly 350 competition entries will be announced at the award ceremony held on
Tuesday, April 8.

Led by award-winning director Nuri Bilge Ceylan, the members of the competition jury are film critic Alin Taşçıyan, cinematographer Gökhan Atılmış, Nokia Turkey Marketing Director Sertaç Şener, and Assistant Director of the İstanbul Film Festival Kerem Ayan.

Meetings on the Bridge

Organised for the past two years and well received by cinema professionals, the third Meetings on the Bridge series of seminars will be held again this year on April 15 and 16.

Bringing together representatives from European foundations like Arte, Eurimages, and Fortissimo with producers, directors, screenwriters, and corporative representatives from Turkey, a project developing workshop open to feature film projects from Turkey will be organised for the first time this year as part of Meetings on the Bridge.

Festival Centre: Akbank Sanat

Akbank Sanat will be the festival centre of the 27th International Film Festival. Akbank Sanat will also serve as the Festival's press centre with its press room, open to all accredited members of the press. Workshops, talks, and panels with film-makers and actors (which will be open to public) will also be organised in Akbank Sanat.

Tickets go on sale March 22

The tickets for the İstanbul Film Festival will be on sale as from March 22.

Discounted tickets will be available this year in all price categories of the popular weekday screenings. Tickets for evening and weekend screenings will be available at very reasonable prices too. The ticket prices at the 27th International İstanbul Film Festival are 10 YTL regular and 7 YTL for students and senior citizens over 65.

Discounts for weekday daytime screenings continue to apply this year. Throughout the Festival period, weekday daytime screenings (11:00 – 13:00 and 16:00) will be only 3.50 YTL, ideal for film lovers and students.

Tickets for the Akbank Galas are priced at 15 YTL.

Screening times are 11:00 – 13:30 – 16:00 – 19:00 and 21:30.

Festival tickets can be obtained from
- BİLETİX sales points,
- BİLETİX call centre (0216 556 98 00)
- www.biletix.com, and
- the box offices at Emek, Atlas, and Rexx movie theatres.

For more information on the 27th International İstanbul Film Festival, please visit: www.iksv.org/film.

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