First introduced as a film week in 1982 by Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (IKSV), Turkey’s leading and largest film event, Istanbul Film Festival (IFF) is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. Supported by the Republic of Turkey Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the festival will be held between 1 April and 29 June. We asked Istanbul Film Festival Director Kerem Ayan about what has changed and what has remained the same with the festival which will take place during the pandemic.
You have been an important part of the Istanbul Film Festival for 15 years while the festival celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. What kind of experience is IFF for you, does it holds a special place in your life?
My connection to IKSV goes back more than 15 years. When I was a student, I was working as a guide at IKSV. After I finished studying cinema in France, I worked at the Cannes Film Festival. I have been working for the Istanbul Film Festival since 2006. That's why the so-called 'festival' has been a part of my life for a very long time. I met so many beautiful people, watched so many movies and travelled around the world. As of last year, everything came to a halt. We don't exactly know what to do next. Currently we are moving forward with online programs but we really hope that festivals will return to a pre-pandemic normal.
Last year, the IFF digitalized and made its movie screenings online. How was the online transition process and participation? Will screenings like this year take place in both venues and digital environments in the coming years?
When we realized that we could not hold the festival in March last year, we cancelled the festival first, then set up our own platform and started showing the movies online in May. This was a first for us. We got very good responses. People showed great interest. They were able to access the festival from anywhere in Turkey, this made us quite happy. This year's festival will also start online. Depending on the government regulations, we are planning to make screenings in movie theatres later on. We are also organizing open air screening for June.
The program for April has now been announced, but the festival will continue in May and June with the additional venues like cinemas and open air theatres. What surprises await us within this three-month period?
We will be able to watch a new movie every day, and these films will be available to watch for 5 days. In April, 20 films from festivals such as Sundance, Toronto and Cannes will be screened. There will be movies from Berlin Film Festival in May. We will have national competitions at the end of May. We are planning to organize premieres and open air shows in June. If conditions allow, we will have guests from abroad and organize our international competitions. We want to screen “How Can Asiye Be Saved?”, which we couldn't last year, and Çetin İnanç's cult movie "The Man Who Saved the World", which received an honorary award this year, in the open air.
What differences do you expect in the films that will participate in the competitions this year? Are there any overarching themes?
Since we have been living with the pandemic for 1 year, we wondered “Will there be any movies based on pandemic?” but actually there are not many of them. Since the films that are participating in the competitions this year were shot and produced last year, we cannot see the films shot during the pandemic period as of yet. The "Language Lessons" we have seen in Berlin was a pandemic movie, and we will try to show it this year. We always see the actors in masks in the film, which won the Golden Bear in Berlin. We will definitely start seeing these kinds of movies but we don't think there will be much of those this year.
This year's Cinema Honorary Awards have been announced. While the April poster of the festival saw Agnès Varda from French cinema and Cüneyt Arkın from Turkish cinema, the retrospective section of the festival this year is devoted to 15 colour films by Alfred Hitchcock. Is there a specific reason you chose these names?
Our honorary awards will be given to Çetin İnanç, Salih Güney, Suna Selen and Belkıs Özener. These artists committed major contributions to Turkish cinema. We can watch Hitchcook's movies anywhere, but we wanted to bring these movies to the audience on the big screen. We collaborated with collage artist Selman Hoşgör for the posters. His work puts foreign directors together with Turkish actors. We will see Agnès Varda and Cüneyt Arkın in April, Claire Denis and Şener Şen in May, and Alfred Hitchcock and Türkan Şoray in June in the same poster. We tried to explain the festival’s diversity with the posters as we brought these 6 artist together.
Can we learn the films that you must watch in this year's festival program?
I would actually suggest to watch them all as we carefully selected the films. However, The Mole Agent, Luzzu, Dear Comrades!, The Killing of Two Lovers, Possessor, A Friendly Tale and Love Affair(s) from April selection are must-see.
