44th Istanbul Film Festival 11-22 April 2025
NEW VISIONS
APOLLON BY DAY ATHENA BY NIGHT / GÜNDÜZ APOLLON GECE ATHENA
Director: Emine Yıldırım TÜRKİYE / 2024 / DCP / Colour /
112’ / Turkish; English s.t.Screenplay: Emine Yıldırım Director of Photography:
Barış AygenEditing: Selda TaşkınMusic: Barış Diri Art Director: Elif Taşçıoğlu Cast:
Ezgi Çelik, Barış Gönenen, Selen Uçer, Gizem Bilgen, Deniz Türkali, Lale
Mansur, Neyra Kayabaşı, Melih Düzenli Producer: Dilde Mahalli, Emine Yıldırım Production
Co.: Rosa Film, Ursula Film World Sales: Rosa Film, Ursula Film
10+
2024 Tokyo Best Film – Asian Future
Raised as an orphan, Defne, has acquired the gift of seeing
ghosts in her adulthood. Defne decides to use this new ability to find her long
lost mother’s ghost, ending up in the ancient town of Side near Antalya. On
this fantastic journey, Defne is accompanied by radical leftist Hüseyin, lounge
singer Nazife, and a priestess from antiquity.
AYŞE
Director: Necmi Sancak TÜRKİYE / 2024 / DCP / Colour / 76’ /
Turkish; English s.t. Screenplay: Necmi Sancak, Ahmet Sancak, Binnur Kaya Director
of Photography: Meryem Yavuz Editing: Osman Bayraktaroğlu Art Director: Turgay
Kutlu Cast: Binnur Kaya, Rıdvan Sancak, Menderes Samancılar, Ali Seçkiner Alıcı
Producer: Necmi Sancak Production Co.: Maara Film World Sales: Maara Film
2024 Antalya Best First Film, Best Director, Best Actress,
Film-Yön Best Director
2024 Cairo Best Artistic Contribution - Director
Ayşe lives with her adult brother Rıdvan, who has Down
syndrome, in a constantly growing and changing suburb of Istanbul. Their father
has been on the verge of death in hospital for a long time. When Ayşe receives
a marriage proposal from an international truck driver, who stops by the petrol
station where she works, she has to choose between her fate and her dreams.
Director: İlkay Nişancı TÜRKİYE / 2024 / DCP / Colour / 100’ / Turkish; English s.t. Screenplay: İlkay Nişancı of Photography: Özgür Yıldız & Utku Faik Yılmaz (Hava Sinematografisi Aerial Cinematography) Editing: Eşref Gürkan KılıçMusic: Türkay Nişancı, Sevan Amiroğlu, İlkay Nişancı Producer: Hakan FıçıcıProduction Co.: Reddish Films World Sales: Reddish Films
2024 Adana Best Documentary
2024 Ankara Jury Special Award
While people hadn’t yet buried their deceased, they fell into the anxiety of exams after the earthquake in Hatay. While the students see the university exam as a way out of this city where they have lost all their memories, the teachers unwittingly build their own utopia. In this period of civil inattention, while trying to memorise the subjects the exam covers, they also try to push the memories of their ruined city out of their minds. But each exam question reminds students of something. For some, distances; for some, the state; for some, a pile of debris by the sea. If the memory of a city is imprisoned in that heap of debris by the sea, the struggle for existence of people trying to build a future is nothing but an exam on the edge of time.
PAYDOS
Director: Müge ManuşTÜRKİYE / 2025 / DCP / Colour / 93’ /
Turkish, English; English s.t.Screenplay: Müge ManuşDirector of Photography:
Müge ManuşEditing: Hülya DelibaşMusic: Uğur CümbüşelArt Director: Müge
ManuşWith: Sander Werelds, Maarten WereldsProducer: Müge ManuşWorld Sales:
Ninova Films Distribution
Having no climbing experience until now, Müge finds herself facing one of the toughest challenges of her life. After crossing paths with Belgian climbers Sander and Maarten, she joins them in creating a daring new climbing route on a towering cliff in a remote Mediterranean cove. As the team pushes through the unforgiving forces of nature, confronts their deepest fears, and tests the limits of their endurance, it is courage, friendship, and the unbreakable bonds of family that drive them toward the summit.
SUMMER LIGHT / YAZ IŞIĞI
Director: Kerem Kuşçu TÜRKİYE / 2024 / DCP / Colour / 104’ /
Turkish; English s.t.Screenplay: Kerem Kuşçu Director of Photography: Cevahir
Şahin Editing: Kerem Kuşçu Art Director: Kerem Kuşçu Cast: Aytuğ Akdoğan,
Kıvanç Kürkçü, Billur Melis Koç, Nehir Erdoğan, Zuhal GencerProducer: Nermin
Aytekin Production Co.: Sade Sinema World Sales: Sade Sinema
6+
Living in Istanbul, Erdem is a young painter at the
beginning of his career, making plans to settle in Çanakkale, where he was born
and raised. When he goes to Çanakkale for two weeks to rest with his family,
Erdem learns that his old friend Arda, whose ties are completely severed
following the traffic accident they were involved in, is going to organize a
painting exhibition in Bozcaada. He creates a reason for himself to confront
his past, which he has been running away from for years. The complex aspects of
Erdem’s loss of the girl he fell in love with in a fatal accident and
eventually starting to take pleasure in this tragic event, his power to add to
his past by seeing that experience as a fingerprint, the sense of belonging
that he tries to re-establish with his family, and the power of deceiving
oneself for the sake of his ideals, is a young man. We observe all through the
perception of the artist.
ON THE WATER SURFACE / SU YÜZÜ
Director: Zeynep KöprülüTÜRKİYE / 2024 / DCP / Colour / 90’
/ Turkish; English s.t.Screenplay: Selin Sevinç, Zeynep KöprülüDirector of
Photography: Lucile MercierEditing: Osman Bayraktaroğlu Music: Efe Demiral,
Nova NordaArt Director: Serdar YılmazCast: Cemre Ebüzziya, Nazan Kesal, Yasemin
Szawlowski, Aytek Şayan, Şamil KafkasProducer: Utku Zeka, Kazım Karaismailoğlu
Production Co.: Periferi Film, KK FilmsWorld Sales: Feel Sales, Ninova Films
Distribution
Deniz returns to her hometown to attend her widowed mother’s
wedding. The anger, fear, and guilt she thought she’d left behind, resurface
during this visit.
Hevî / THE HOPE
Director: Orhan İnce TÜRKİYE / 2024 / DCP / Colour / 80’ /
Kurdish; Turkish, English s.t.Screenplay: Orhan İnce Director of Photography:
Cem Geneşke Editing: Erhan Örs Art Director: Cengiz Toprak, Hasan İnce Cast: Ömer
Akalın, Yavuz Akkuzu, Bedriye Roza Çelik, Deniz Sal, Nazmi Karaman, Ruken Önen,
Güldestan Yüce, Mekin KılıçProducer: Burak Kanısıcak, Orhan İnceCo-Producer:
Deniz SalProduction Co.: Sinemarjen Film World Sales: Sinemarjen Film
2024 Adana Best Promising Actor
Nine-year-old Zeyno, who is hearing and speech impaired,
lives with her father Mustafa and her older brother Çeto in their house far
away from the village. She spends all her time with her sheep, which she
inherited from her mother. Çeto starts earning his own money by helping Emin, a
livestock dealer he met by chance. When their father Mustafa starts buying and
selling animals with Emin, Zeyno starts to worry about her sheep.
ATHLETE/ ATLET
Director: Semih Gülen, Mustafa Emin Büyükcoşkun TÜRKİYE,
GERMANY, ROMANIA / 2025 / DCP / Colour / 89’ / Turkish, Bosnian; English
s.t. Screenplay: Semih Gülen, Mustafa Emin Büyükcoşkun Director of Photography:
Ayşe Alacakaptan Editing: Semih Gülen, Arda Çiltepe Music: Eylül Deniz Keleş Art
Director: Günsu Sarı Cast: Sevda Baş, Tarhan Karagöz, Esra Kızıldoğan, Bilgesu
Akın, Gamze Akça Özcan, Ercan Kesal Producer: Arda ÇiltepeCo-Producer: Zeynep
Dişbudak, Anamaria Antoci, Anda Ionescu, Mehmet Akif Büyükatalay, Claus
Herzog-Reichel, Mario von Grumbkow Production Co.: Vigo Film World Sales: Vigo
Film
Hatice, a young and ambitious weightlifter living with her
unemployed mother, aims to win the lifetime allowance provided to athletes who
win medals in international competitions. In her pursuit of success at all
costs, she decides to use an unconventional doping technique at the world
championships: She will get pregnant, boost her hormones, and then have an
abortion. But when her attempts don’t go as well as she’s anticipated, she has
to take unexpected detours.
IN THE SHADE OF THE POPLAR TREE / KAVAK AĞACININ GÖLGESİNDE
Director: Kenan Diler TÜRKİYE / 2025 / DCP / Colour / 64’ / Turkish, Kurdish; Turkish, English s.t. Screenplay: Kenan Diler Director of Photography: Kenan Diler Editing: Kenan Diler Music: Eriş Dervişoğlu, Sabır Erdinç With: Mikail Haskanlı Producer: Kenan DilerProduction Co.: Dlr FilmWorld Sales: Dlr Film
Mikail, who simultaneously looks like a madman and a dervish, runs an extraordinary cafe in order to isolate himself from the society and the strict, traditional structure of his family. He tries but struggles to open a boutique hotel for his mother, who is his father’s second wife since the age of 14 and is persecuted in this patriarchal structure. He dreams that she can live in this hotel so she can forget all that she went through.
THE HOUSE WITH NO ADDRESS / ADRESİ OLMAYAN EV
Director: Hatice Aşkın TÜRKİYE, GREECE / 2024 / DCP / Colour
/ 96’ / Turkish; English s.t. Screenplay: Hatice AşkınDirector of Photography:
Feza Çaldıran Editing: Smaro Papaevangelou Music: Nassos Sopilis, Saki Çimen Art
Director: Atilla Çelik Cast: Boran Kuzum, Osman Sonant, Zeynep Tuğçe Bayat Producer:
Emre Oskay, George Kyriakos, Engin Altan Düzyatan Production Co.: Sky Film,
Vantablack Films, View Master Films, Alpha Film World Sales: Arthood
Entertainment
Those who commit one of the nine major offenses –greed,
arrogance, lust, anger, envy, sloth, extravagance, treachery, and violence– are
tried under the law of oblivion, and when they die, all their possessions are
collected and their property is confiscated. Criminals’ personal belongings and
corpses are ground in the grinding factory, and all their traces are completely
erased from life. Alper, a young lawyer, is at work when he receives the news
that his mother Andaç has died suddenly in an ironic traffic accident. When
Alper returns home with his father, they are shocked to see the oblivion law
officials collecting his mother’s belongings.
UNFRUITFUL TIMES / ÖLÜ MEVSİM
Director: Doğuş AlgünTÜRKİYE, ITALY, NORTH MACEDONIA / 2024
/ DCP / Colour / 120’ / Turkish; English s.t.Screenplay: Selen Örcan, Doğuş
AlgünDirector of Photography: Ece LatifaoğluEditing: Doğuş AlgünArt Director:
Bengü Şener, Ahmet YörükCast: Funda Eryiğit, Ece Yaşar, Erdem Şenocak, Serkan
Ercan, Haydar Şahin, Naz Göktan, Nesrin Uçarlar, Feri Baycu Güler, Banu
Fotocan, Tolga TekinProducer: Burak KaplanCo-Producer: Paolo Ansaldi, Mari Pia
Billi, Bunjamin Kurtishi, Fidush Aliu, Harika Uygur, Funda EryiğitProduction
Co.: Gest FilmWorld Sales: Gest Film
2024 Adana Best Screenplay, Best Actress, Best Actor, Best
Actress, Best Supporting Actress, Best Supporting Actor
2024 Ankara Mahmut Tali Öngören Best First Film, Best
Supporting Actress, Best Supporting Actor
After a tragic miscarriage, middle-aged Nimet is stuck in
her conservative neighbourhood in Istanbul, while her beloved younger sister
Öznur carries a burden of her own in the family, struggling with her own
demons.
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