Mediterranean cinemas meet in İzmir

ISTANBUL

The third İzmir International Meeting of Mediterranean Cinemas (MEDCINE) will be held between Nov. 8 and 13. Within the scope of the festival, films from 20 Mediterranean countries will be on the screen.

In cooperation with the İzmir Metropolitan Municipality, Institut Français, Chamber of Architects İzmir branch and Intercultural Art Association, the festival events will be held in İzmir Art, İzmir French Cultural Center, İzmir Architecture Center and Ahmed Adnan Saygun Art Center, and the screenings will be open to the public.

“Our world does not want war but peace and tolerance. Art is peaceful. It allows us to see life through someone else's eyes. The Mediterranean Cinemas Meeting has a historical mission; to be an advocate of peace at all times and under all circumstances,” says İzmir Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Tunç Soyer about the festival.

Due to the World Urbanization Day, a panel titled “City and Art” will be held at the İzmir Architecture Center on Nov. 8, the opening day of the festival, which features all Mediterranean cultures.

The Chamber of Architects İzmir Branch President İlker Kahraman, Chamber of Urban Planners İzmir Branch board member Ceylan Ekin Işık, architect-writer-illustrator Behiç Ak and Gökmen Ulu, director of the movie "Communist Osman," which will be screened after the panel, will attend the panel to be moderated by the festival director Vecdi Sayar. The film focuses on the life of Osman Özgüven, the legendary president of Dikili.

The only award of the festival, the “Henri Langlois MEDCINE İzmir Award,” will this year go to Costa-Gavras, a French director of Greek origin, one of the masters of the cinema world and the president of the French Cinematheque.

Gavras' four feature films and short films, as well as two collective productions in which he participated, will be screened. An exhibition consisting of photographs of Henri Langlois, Costa-Gavras and Turkish Cinema director Onat Kutlar and posters of the festival films will be displayed at Izmir Sanat.

On the last day of the festival Nov. 13, the Henri Langlois and the Memory of Cinema Symposium will be held in İzmir Sanat in memory of Langlois.

Among the documentaries to be screened at the festival are "Days of Love, Fire and Anarchy - Onat Kutlar and Turkish Cinematheque," "Watching the Shadow - Controversial Firsts of Turkish Cinema," "Sounds of Heaven," "Lumiere and His Friends," "Henri Langlois Through the Eyes of the Director" and "Sadıkbey," a documentary about İzmir.

There will be two feature-length productions from Turkish cinema in the festival program: Umut Subaşı's “Sanki Her Şey Biraz Felaket” (Almost Entirely a Slight Disaster), which won the Best Film, Best Director and Best Screenplay awards at the Adana Film Festival this year, and Fikret Reyhan's “Cam Perde” (Glass Curtain), which won the Special Jury Prize in Istanbul and Adana.

In the festival program, there will be 36 films from the world cinema under the sections Cities, Identities, “Mediterranean Women, Mediterranean Cuisine and Mediterranean Masters.”

The festival will also present "Mediterranean Songs” concert by Savinna Yannatou and Thessaloniki Trio at the Ahmed Adnan Saygun Art Center on Nov. 11. The program includes songs from Greece, Türkiye, Italy, Spain, Albania and France, as well as songs in Arabic, Armenian and Ladino languages. The concert will be free.