delights of a different kind
'Dry Summer' the 1964 classic film from Metin Erksan
There's more to Turkey than whirling dervishes, fezzes and hookahs, and to prove it, the Melbourne Turkish Film Festival comes to town with a showcase of cinematic gems that break all the stereotypes
The opening night film Autumn is the debut feature from up and coming talent Özcan Alper. In 2001 Alper made his first short film called Grandmother, shot entirely in Hemsin, a dialect spoken in the north-east of Turkey and the first film to be made in that language. The success of Grandmother enabled him to make Autumn, a visually stunning film about a political prisoner recently released from behind bars after serving a ten-year sentence who struggles to resume a normal life.
Atif Yilmaz's The Girl With the Red Scarf is one of the restored classics screening in the festival, along with Metin Erksan's Dry Summer, winner of the Golden Bear award at the 1964 Berlin Film Festival, the first ever won by Turkey in an international film competition. Beginning his career as a film critic and journalist, Erksan became an art historian dedicated to the survival of archival films and was one of the first Turkish filmmakers to view cinema as an art form and not just a form of entertainment.
Other highlights of the festival include Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Three Monkeys, winner of the Best Director award at last year's Cannes Film Festival, Çagan Irmak's Alone, a box-office hit in its native country, and Yesim Ustaoglu Pandora's Box, winner of the Golden Shell award for Best Film at the 2009 San Sebastián International Film Festival.
The Melbourne Turkish Film Festival runs from Sunday 19 April to Friday 24 April. For session times and bookings click here
Published Tuesday, 14 April 2009
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