Turkish film sector meets producers at Cannes

ISTANBUL

The cocktail party at Cannes was hosted by the Istanbul Film Festival with the aim of celebrating the Istanbul Film Festival’s 31st year. Leading figures in Turkish and world cinema attended the Efes sponsored cocktail party, which has undertaken the “Turkish Cinema” sponsorship at the Istanbul Film Festival for the last 25 years. Photo by ABACAPRESS.com

A cocktail party was held on the night of May 22 within the scope of the Producers Network, the
industry section of the 64th Cannes Film Festival, which supports international co-productions.

The cocktail party was hosted by the Istanbul Film Festival with the aim of celebrating the Istanbul Film Festival’s 31st year, which recently passed with enthusiasm, the international successes of Turkish cinema seen in recent years and the film projects supported this year by the Meetings on the Bridge Platform.

Leading figures in Turkish and world cinema attended the Efes sponsored cocktail party, which has undertaken the “Turkish Cinema” sponsorship at the Istanbul Film Festival for the last 25 years.
A total of 200 guests from the Locarno, Rotterdam, Sarajevo, Berlin, Jerusalem, Thessaloniki and Hong Kong film festivals attended the cocktail party at Cannes.

The Meetings on the Bridge Platform, organized for the seventh time within the scope of the Istanbul Film Festival, continued to create opportunities for making the first international presentation of new feature-length projects by bringing together producers, directors, scriptwriters and institutional representatives from Europe and Turkey. While the projects “Home Country,” by Senem Tüzen; “Dust Fabric,” by Ahu Öztürk; and “Lonely Child,” by Tolga Karaçelik were given awards this year, the project titled “Bust” by Mizgin Müjde Arslan was found praiseworthy by members of the jury.

This year the project owners have the chance to meet with representatives from Eurimages, the Rotterdam Film Festival, ZDF, Ace, Eave, the Eye Film Institute, the Israel Film Fund, MPM Film, ARTE, Binger Lab, Open Doors/the Locarno Film Festival, Una Film, Holland Film Meeting, Sundance, Torino Film Lab, the Open Russian Film Festival and the Independent Film Project, thanks to Meetings on the Bridge.

The Turkish-German Co-Production Development Fund announced that a project to support seven films has kicked off for the first time this year. The project launched a workshop titled “Work in Progress” for long and documentary movies. The project aims to support the movies during the postproduction process.

Awards of participants

The participants also received awards. This year the Istanbul Film Festival included a special section to contribute to İKSV’s year-long celebrations of its 40th anniversary. The section presented five musicals, each representing a decade in the foundation’s history since its establishment in 1973. These included Martin Scorsese’s 1977 film “New York New York” which stars Liza Minelli and Robert De Niro and Alan Parker’s 1982 film “Pink Floyd the Wall,” written by the band’s leading man, Roger Waters. The 1990s were represented by Stephan Elliott’s “The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert,” the 2000s with Baz Luhrmann’s “Moulin Rouge!” and Christophe Honoré’s 2011 film, “Beloved,” represented the 2010s.

The festival, which took place between March 31 and April 15, had a full film program for the entire two weeks, with more than 200 movies in more than 20 categories, famous guests, seminars and workshops with expert filmmakers, film classes, master classes and concerts for cinephiles. This year’s cocktail party hosted many famous guests from Turkey. Among them was Zeynep Özbatur, the producer of the film “Once Upon a Time in Anatolia” directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan and which represented Turkey in the main competition of the Cannes Film Festival.

The event was also attended by directors Semih Kaplanoğlu and Kutluğ Ataman; cinema writer Atilla Dorsay; Aslı Erdem from Bulut Among the other guests at the cocktail were Holland Film manager Claudia Landsberger; Alesia Weston, art director of the Jerusalem Film Fest; Signe Zeilich-Jensen, Holland Film Meeting director; Jovan Marjanovic, Katriel Schory, Israel Film Fund director; Isabelle Fauvel, Meetings on the Bridge consultant; Benoit Ginisty, FIAPF general secretary; Randa Haines, the director of the movie titled “The Children of Other Gods;” Jacobine Van der Vloed from Cinemark; Sonja Heinen, Berlin Film Festival market director; and Julie Bergeron, the director of Cannes Film Festival joint productions department Producers Network.