14 Years Like a Movie

Istanbul is getting ready to host an international documentary film festival gathering directors from Turkey and around the globe. Under the sponsorship of Beyoğlu Municipality, the 14th Istanbul International 1001 Documentary Film Festival starts on June 29^th 2011.

Many of us are aware of the fact that documentary viewing is not really the most popular activity in Turkey, especially among high school and college students. Since documentary film-making is not completely developed and well advertised, the audience simply does not know what to expect and gain from a documentary film. Bilgi University student Nilay Ozenç explained: “When I hear the word ‘documentary’, I immediately think of lions and wild life on the Discovery Channel. I do not even know why people would buy tickets to watch that at a festival. This does not exactly qualify as art”. Deniz Onat, Istanbul Commerce University student added: “To be honest, I cannot sit through an entire documentary film. I have never watched one that did not make me want to reach for the remote”.

Personally, how I felt about the documentary films was not completely different from the college students I have spoken to, not until I have ended up at the last year’s festival. The 13^th 1001 Documentary Film Festival did reform my opinions on documentary film-making. The memories of hippie looking adults, college students at the gates carrying funny signs of environmental sustainability, colorful brochures on the floor, the terrible smell of street pop corn and the car horns that aim to get rid of the Greenpeace activists who were blocking the road at the rush hour are still vivid. Last year’s theme, the original ideas and creativity of the directors showed me that documentary film viewing can actually be really fun. For everyone who likes watching documentaries or wants to rebuild ideas towards them should check out the 14^th International 1001 Documantary Film Festival. Here is what awaits you.  

  

This year’s festival director Mustafa Ünlü said they made some changes and reduced the number of films. “We have raised the bar in a sense. The films will be screened in a narrower area between Tünel and Galatasaray. In this way, viewers will have a better chance to interact with each other,” he said. The festival will have 68 films by directors from 24 countries including Turkey, the United States, Germany, Iran, Argentina, India, China, Ireland and France. 

Documentary Makers’ Union President Semra Güzel Korver said the festival, which was first organized in 1997, had hosted nearly 200 documentary makers from 56 countries and screened more than 1000 films. “The festival has created a high-quality documentary viewer profile in Turkey. Many television channels have begun to produce and show documentaries as well,” she said. 

 For this year’s festival, Tünel Square in Taksim will turn into a festival area and films will be screened in nearby movie theaters including the Muammer Karaca Theater, the Tarık Zafer Tunaya Culture Center and the Goethe Institute. Screenings on the Anatolian side will take place at the Nazım Hikmet Culture Center in Kadıköy. 

A new section has been established at the 14th International 1001 Documentary Film Festival: Cinema Laboratory, created by Ersan Ocak. Ocak explained that the laboratory is designed as a platform for discussing the latest experiments in cinema and particularly in documentaries. In this section, the “newness” of the forms and modes of documentary will be captured by looking at and discussing them from different perspectives.
Cinema Laboratory that began with three seminars last year will expand this year. In addition to new seminars, there will also be a special screening and exhibition program that involve new and experimental works of documentary filmmakers from around the world. The aim of the laboratory is not only to bring together the filmmakers from all over the world, who experiment to discover new forms and modes in cinema, but also to establish a platform for the discussion of new forms and modes with audiences. 

This year’s festival slogan is “Seven Colors in the Mirror of Truth.” True-life stories about war, violence, social depression and the people who experienced or resisted them will be screened under the title “Black Section” while the “Red Section” will show the working conditions of laborers around the world. Other titles will be the “Orange Section,” showing modern day stories from around the world. “Yellow Section,” featuring films on migration; the “Blue Section,” featuring ordinary stories about extraordinary people and extraordinary stories about ordinary people; the “Purple Section,” featuring films on how geography, climate and society influence culture; and the “Green Section,” featuring films about the struggle for a sustainable world. 

Most of the Turkish documentaries in the festival program and all of the foreign documentaries were made in the last two years and will be shown for the first time in Istanbul. Directors will join the festival and share their experiences with the audience for 45 minutes following the screening of their films. 

One of the most interesting productions of the festival will be a 24 hour documentary project. On Sept. 5, 2009, 80 camera teams followed the adventures of various residents of the German metropolis for a day and a night. The makers of this film The Schneider brothers explained that they wanted to find out about modern life in Berlin. “The cameras follow many different kinds of people, ranging from a call center employee to a drug addict to the city's governing mayor. From life to death, from love and sex to loneliness,  the 24 hour long documentary is an ode to the city of Berlin.” Said one of the producers Tobias Schneider. The documentary, which was previously shown on a German TV channel, will start to screen on June 30^th  at Goethe Institute at 6 a.m. and finish at 6 a.m. the next day.

The festival program seems to be evolved compared to last year’s events and many citizens of Istanbul are very excited to see the themed documentaries. At a press conference held this week at the Beyoğlu Art Gallery, Beyoğlu Mayor Ahmet Misbah Demircan said Turkey’s first and longest documentary festival has become a driving force for documentary filmmaking in Turkey. “The festival, which does not have a competition, has succeeded in becoming a common meeting platform for Eastern and Western documentary makers, Istanbul again achieves to connect East and West. Its is unbelievably satisfactory to see that our beautiful city is now doing this through high quality art. ”