31. Istanbul IFF | National Competition Films

The programme of the 31st Istanbul Film Festival was announced on Wednesday, 7 March at the press conference held in İKSV Salon. Speakers during the press conference were İKSV Chairman of Board of Directors Bülent Eczacıbaşı, Akbank General Manager Hakan Binbaşıgil and Assistant Director of the Istanbul Film Festival Kerem Ayan.


The festival programme presents a rich content to cinephiles as always. The festival will meet the audience this year with a wide spectrum selections expanding new feature movies of 2011 and 2012, unforgetable classic movies, and masterpieces of master directors, movies having world premieres in Sundance in January and in Berlin in February, National Golden Tulip, International Golden Tulip and FACE Human Rights Competitions, documentaries, and children movies. “Cinema and Music” section planned for the 40th year of İKSV as well as new sections like “Filming Revolution”, “What’s Happening in Greece?” and “A Chinese Film Tradition: WuXia”, “Within the Family” and 15-hour-long special view of Mark Cousins’s The Story of Film: An Odyssey stand out in the festival. The Special Prize of the Jury, which was supported with a monetary award for the first time in 2011, will come to be distributed by Efes this year. Among the films partaking in the Golden Tulip National Competition, the director of the film to win the Special Jury Prize in the memory of Onat Kutlar, will be awarded 30,000 US Dollars by Efes to be used in his/her next film.  



This year, the Golden Tulip International Competition Jury will be led by renowned director Nuri Bilge Ceylan, who lately won the Special Jury Prize in Cannes Film Festival with his latest film Once Upon A Time in Anatolia. In addition to the Golden Tulip as the Grand Prize of the festival, the jury will also present a director the Special Prize of the Jury for exceptional achievement. The International Competition will be supported by a total of 25,000 Euro monetary prizes to be given by the Eczacıbaşı Group in the memory of Şakir Eczacıbaşı. Of this total amount, 10,000 Euros will be given to the Turkish distributor of the film to earn the Golden Tulip Best Film award.


NATIONAL COMPETITION


Meanwhile, the Golden Tulip National Competition Jury will be headed by poet and writer Murathan Mungan, whose several works have been adapted to theater. Mungan was also the screenwriter of Dağınık Yatak / An Untidy Bed by Atıf Yılmaz, considered a cult film by many. Lead by Mungan, the jury will hand out nine awards including the Best Turkish Film, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Actor, Best Screenplay, Best Director of Photography, Best Music, Best Editing, and Special Prize of the Jury.


The film to be selected as the Best Turkish Film will be awarded 150,000 TL, and the Best Director will be awarded 50,000 TL. The Best Actress and Best Actor will be awarded 10,000 TL each.



31.  Istanbul IFF | National Competition Films 
March 31-April 15, 2012


(World Premiers) 
Ben Uçtum, Sen Kaldın / Mizgin Müjde Arslan
Ana Dilim Nerede? / Veli Kahraman
Şimdiki Zaman / Belmin Söylemez
Ferahfeza / Elif Refiğ


(National Premiers) 
Tepenin Ardı / Emin Alper 
Lal Gece / Reis Çelik
Babamın Sesi / Orhan Eskiköy & Zeynel Doğan


and in competition


İz-Rêç / M. Tayfur Aydın   
Can / Raşit Çelikezer 
Yeraltı / Zeki Demirkubuz 
Nar / Ümit Ünal