Hollywood Turkish Film Fest ‘fulfills long-held dream’

HOLLYWOOD - Anadolu Agency

The Hollywood Turkish Film Festival is a project that Turkey’s film sector has long dreamt of, according to the festival’s organizer.

Speaking at the festival’s opening ceremony in Hollywood on Oct. 20, Barbaros Tapan said the event would offer a platform for Turkish cinema to be introduced to Hollywood.

“Every year, Oscar-nominated [Turkish] films come to Los Angeles, but they aren’t promoted very well,” Tapan said, adding that without good PR, a good film can be lost in the flood of movies seeking attention in Hollywood.

Prominent Turkish actor Selçuk Yöntem hailed the festival, saying he hoped it would be a regular event.

“I feel that it will grow a great deal,” he said.

In addition to Yöntem, Turkish actors such Kaan Urgancıoğlu, Demet Akbağ and Meryem Uzerli also attended.

The festival, running through Oct. 23, features three Turkish films as well as five short movies showing in Los Angeles.

The first Hollywood Turkish Film Festival began with the screening of Turkey’s foreign-language Oscar nominee Ayla, which focuses on the relationship between a Turkish soldier and a Korean orphan during the Korean War.

Other films in the festival program are Turkish-Italian director Ferzan Özpetek’s “Istanbul Kırmızısı” (Red Istanbul) and Mustafa Karadeniz’s “Çınar.” The movies are being screened at Paramount Studios in Los Angeles, California.

The festival was founded by Tapan, a journalist and member of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, and film director Tekin Girgin, and supported by Turkey’s Culture Ministry.