Pera Fest celebrates 10th year

ISTANBUL- Hürriyet Daily News

The World Flamenco Day will also be celebrated as part of the Pera Fest with the flamenco show ‘Op 24’ that will be presented by contemporary masters of flamenco music, the Andres Marin Flamenco group from the Spanish region of Andalusia. The festival will continue with events including concerts, dance shows, panel discussions, talks and theater plays at Istanbul’s different venues.

The 10th edition of Istanbul’s premier interdisciplinary festival, the International Pera Fest, kicked off its two-week program yesterday.
The festival will continue until Nov. 30 with 46 events, including concerts, dance shows, panel discussions, talks and theater plays at 20 different venues.
Organized by the Intercultural Communications Interdisciplinary Art Association and Pi Production, this year’s festival centers on the theme of “Multiculturalism.”
The festival opened yesterday with the Turkish Cinema Days. Documentaries that shed light on Turkish cinema and renowned Turkish director Lütfi Akad’s masterpiece, “Hudutların Kanunu” (The Law of the Border), the renewed copy of which was screened at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, was shown on the first day of the festival.
The Italian folk music band I Solisti di Montemarano was also scheduled to perform for the opening concert of the festival last night at Ghetto. Consisting of nine members, the band was expected to present a program including Italian traditional Tarantella music and dances. “Tarantella,” an Italian folk dance that was originally developed to supposedly help expunge the poison caused by spider bites, developed several hundred years ago and has remained popular in parts of the country until the present.
One of the most striking events of this year’s festival will be held tomorrow, World Flamenco Day. Taking place at the Mustafa Kemal Center, the flamenco “Op 24” will be presented by contemporary masters of flamenco music, the Andres Marin Flamenco group from the Spanish region of Andalusia.
The festival will also host Zeynep Arabacıoğlu in a concert that brings together Latino and Ladino cultures. The concert will be performed at Haymatlos in Beyoğlu on Nov. 17.
Among the international groups of the festival are Hradcany, which is made up of two French musicians, an Iranian musician and the Romanian jazz group Sorin Zlat Trio. The Dutch group Spinifex will also perform with internationally known Turkish band Gevende.
The festival program will further feature young Turkish jazz musician Meltem Ege, winner of many international awards; Birsen Tezer with the debut presentation of her new project; tango dancer Mehtap Meral and musician Çiğdem Erken.
Another festival project will be “Attention! Flamenko,” which brings together music and dance.
A Liszt recital, performed by Hungarian pianist Adrienne Hauser, is another important music event at the festival in the field of classical music and celebrates the 200th anniversary of the birth of Franz Liszt.

Multiculturalism from cinema to visual arts
Istanbul Modern is hosting the festival’s film screenings, which are being shown under two titles. The “Multiculturalism in Our Cinema” will screen Turkish documentaries, while four films in four different languages will be shown under the title “Multicultural European Cinema: Spain.”
The film “Turkish Passport,” which premiered at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, will be screened at the Pera Museum. After the screening, there will be a talk by the living heroes of the film, Jewish survivors saved from Nazi Germany. On the same day, the Pera Museum will host novelist Ayşe Kulin.
As part of the Pera Fest, a panel discussion titled “Democracy and Art” will be attended by managers and artists from the state, private and city theaters. Critic Tunca Arslan will also make a presentation on “Germany in Our Cinema on the 50th Year of Immigration” at the Pera Museum.
Another festival panel discussion will be “Art and Multiculturalism,” directed by the festival’s art director, Vecdi Sayar.
One more panel discussion “Travelers and Intercultural Dialogue from Evliya Çelebi to Present Day” will be followed by a documentary.