The 31st Istanbul Film Festival will start Saturday. The festival, which is to take place between March 31 and April 15 , is promising two whole weeks full of a film program with more than 200 movies under more than 20 sections, famous guests, seminars and workshops with expert filmmakers, film classes, master classes, and concerts for cinephiles.
The festival’s opening film is Terence Davies’ “The Deep Blue Sea,” which stars Rachel Weisz. Davies will be presented a Cinema Honorary Award and will also give a master class within the festival. The class titled “The Delights and Dangers of Ambiguity” will be held March 31 at 4 p.m. at Salon İKSV.
This year’s Cinema Honorary Awards are also going to four important local names, Director Ali Özgentürk, actress Ayşen Gruda, actor Halit Akçatepe, and Sevin Okyay, the first female film critic of Turkey. The awards will be presented to owners at the opening ceremony of the festival on March 30 at Lütfi Kırdar Convention and Exhibition Center.
In addition to core sections of the festival, five Turkish movies will be shown under the “Out of Competition” section. “Last Stop Salvation” by Yusuf Pirhasan, “To Better Days” by Hasan Tolga Pulat, “In Flames” by Murat Saraçoğlu, “The Extremely Tragic Story of Celal Tan and His Family” by Onur Ünlü and “Velvet” by Erdoğan Kar will meet with the audience in this section.
The International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI) will distribute its own awards in the Istanbul Film Festival as in the previous years. One movie from the International Competition and one movie from the National Competition will receive the FIPRESCI Award. The FIPRESCI jury will have Pamela Bienzóbas from Chile as head of jury, Dieter Wieczorek from France, Nicole Santé from the Netherlands, Noura Borsali from Tunisia and Erman Ata Uncu and Kerem Akça from Turkey.
For more info check http://film.iksv.org/en or facebook