14th Festival on Wheels – Kars Nov. 7-13 2008

If people do not go to the cinema, the cinema goes to the people. This is the best way to describe the Festival on Wheels, that has been bringing quality cinema to the remotest corners of Turkey while carrying the best of Turkish cinema to European and North American capitals. Kars, an eastern town laden with history lies at the Turkish – Armenian border. For a population of about 325.000 inhabitants, there are only two halls with screening possibilities. Hence, the importance of the festival that showcases an impressive selection of films from around the world in addition to the latest gems of Turkish cinema. For the locals, to meet Tarık Akan, the idol of generations with unforgettable roles such as in Yol or Sürü / The Herd, or Müjde Ar who, starting in the 1980s, revolutionized the way cinema looked at women with her daring performances (particularly in Atıf Yılmaz films), this is a dream come true and a good educational tool for the young generation weaned on the sit-coms and soap-operas of the Turkish television.

Originally founded as the Festival of European Films with a program of Turkish and European films that visit different cities of Europe, Turkey, Azerbaijan and Georgia in four weeks, the festival found its niche in Kars and even dropped the screenings of Ankara, the capital this year. Another novelty was to extend the program to world cinema.

Ten films competed for the Golden and Silver Goose and SIYAD (Turkish Critics) awards. (The goose is practically the emblem of the town and an important revenue.) In addition to Semih Kaplanoğlu’s Süt / Milk and Özcan Alper’s Sonbahar / Autumn, Goran Markovic’s Turneja / The Tour and two Mexican films, Lake Tahoe by Fernando Eimbcke and Desierto Adentro / Desert Within by Rodrigo Pla and Hunger by Steve McQueen about the IRA hunger strike in 1981, were some of the films in this section.

The festival opened with Pandora’nın Kutusu / Pandora’s Box, the latest film of Turkey’s most important woman director, Yeşim Ustaoğlu, who had won the Golden Shell award for Best Film at this year’s San Sebastian Film Festival and closed with Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Cannes winner, Üç Maymun / Three Monkeys. Some of the other Turkish films that had gla screenings in Kars were Tatil Kitabı / Summer Book by Seyfi Teoman, Gitmek / My Marlon and Brando by Hüseyin Karabey and Derviş Zaim’s Nokta / Dot.

But Kars was also where cultures meet. Film students from the friendly and not so friendly neighboring countries are invited to show their work or to make films during this exciting week. Animation experts from outside come to work with elementary school children who display remarkable talent. Cinema for Peace program, a joint project of Anatolian Culture and the Corporation of Gyumri City Research Center, invited students from Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia to Kars for a workshop about pasifist documentary. Docu-travel documentary workshop also brought together students of different nations, Ukrania, Georgia, Armenia and Turkey under the tutorship of experts from these regions to explore the rich culture of the area. The products of the workshops were shown to the audience on the closing night.

Coupled with the unspoiled local hospitality, the excellent programs of excursions arranged by the Festival to take the participants on a journey of history (such as the ruins of Ani or Mount Ararat) and the evening concerts that range from Turkish alternative rock of “Replikas” (the music of Kutluğ Ataman’s İki Genç Kız / Two Girls to Kurdish ballads of Aynur (made famous with her performance in Fatih Akin’s music documentary, Crossing the Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul), Kars was the place to be.

ASIAN CINEMA, Vol. 20, No.1, Spring / Summer 2009

Artvin, North East Turkey, the location for this year's Film Festival on Wheels Artvin, North East Turkey, the location for this year's Film Festival on Wheels Sheila Johnston "Where?" you ask.

Sheila Johnston - 20 December 2009

Artvin, North East Turkey, the location for this year's Film Festival on Wheels Artvin, North East Turkey, the location for this year's Film Festival on Wheels Sheila Johnston "Where?" you ask. In the extreme North-East of Turkey, wedged in between the Black Sea, the Georgian and Armenian borders and the snow-capped Pontic Mountains, the hardscrabble town of Artvin clings tenaciously to a near-vertical hillside. Population: 25,000. Hotels: a handful, all rustic. Distance from the small coastal airport of Trabzon: three hours up a precipitous road. Nearest cinema: 50 miles. In short, the perfect spot for an international film festival.

ViewofArtvinSearch for Artvin (left, photo: Murat Kocaağa) on English-language Google and you won't turn up much. Claimed by successive waves of occupiers from the Ottomans onwards until it devolved to Turkey in 1921, the town once flourished as a cool summer resort for its colonisers. Today, though, the swanky dachas have crumbled and, aside from its astonishing natural beauty, the place seems known chiefly for trekking, bull fighting, bear hunting and apparently (there's no tactful way round this) sex traffic. "Artvin has been dubbed ‘one large brothel'," asserts my Lonely Planet guide baldly, though to be fair it's a 1996 edition.

For a week in mid-December, none of the above is in evidence. The bulls are in their winter quarters, the bears are in hibernation and the prostitutes - if they exist - are either in mufti or have gone to ground for the duration. Instead, there is art of the filmic variety in Artvin; and there is even wine, for the locals apply a liberal interpretation to Islamic practice, not to mention to Turkey's stringent anti-smoking laws. For seven days, the Festival on Wheels is in town.

CinemaArtvinThe nights draw in early in Artvin, which shares the same time zone as Istanbul but is 800 miles due east (even further from the tourist honeypots of the Aegean coast): view its location here on Multimap. One afternoon earlier this week, a minor riot erupted in the winter half-light outside the Cultural Centre, which had been converted into a cinema for the occasion (right, photo: Sheila Johnston). There was no red carpet - the rain and sleet would make short work of it - but a sense of driving urgency as teenagers fought to get into a screening of François Ozon's contentious 1998 film Sitcom. Later, schoolchildren at Castaway on the Moon, a very adult black comedy from Korea, tugged at my sleeve, keen to practise their English (the local literacy rate is 90 per cent, comfortably above the national average).

The Turkish cinema is in rude health: between 70 and 80 films were produced this year, and it accounts for well over half the domestic box-office (paradoxically, the number of movie theatres, at present 1679 screens, is declining fast). 7_HusbandsBut the selection at Artvin spanned everything from local comedies, like the commedia dell'arte musical burlesque Hürmüz and her 7 Husbands (pictured left), which opened the festival, to contemporary world cinema (Ken Loach's Looking For Eric). There were classics such as Luis Buñuel'sThe Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, short films from Brazil, a Lithuanian avant-garde programme and a section devoted to polemical films simply and rather splendidly titled "Anti".

There is nothing new about this concept, of course. In the early 20th century travelling cinemas were a popular fairground attraction in Europe and America. Today they still tour far-flung places, from India to North-East Brazil, with a role to play in every country where the arts are over-centralised. That certainly applies to Turkey, where the unifying iron hand of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk is still manifest, and culture gravitates irresistibly towards Istanbul (even Ankara, the capital, seems provincial, its inhabitants say). But it is equally true of, say, the Australian bush or the Scottish Highlands and Islands. And Tilda Swinton and the critic/film-maker Mark Cousins towed a portable cinema all around the West Coast of Scotland last summer.

FestonwheelsposterThe Festival on Wheels is unlike any of these. This is not just a question of rolling in, screening a film and smartly moving on. This is the full monty; a festival lock, stock and barrel. The movies - 29 features and several dozen shorts - are shown not on DVD, as I had assumed, but on subtitled 35mm prints. A little minibus had toiled up the mountain loaded with them (the trip from Ankara took 24 hours). Enthused by the prospect of hosting the festival, the municipality had equipped its cultural centre - whose modest facade conceals a capacious interior with 440 raked seats - with a projector and Dolby stereo. Voilà: a perfectly serviceable cinema.

The event has an international jury with a Golden Bull to bestow, and international delegates from as far afield as Korea and Brazil. A student workshop will produce a documentary to record the occasion. It has a delightful trailer. It has a poster (right) designed by one of Turkey's leading cartoonists, Behiç Ak. It has a daily newspaper, albeit printed on an elderly press (below left, photo: Murat Kocaağa). What's more, the Festival on Wheels has been on the road, running on a shoestring, for a full 15 years. You have to be inspired to do this, tirelessly energetic and definitely a little mad.

ArtvinprintingpressAnother question: "Why Artvin?" Over the years the Festival on Wheels has had numerous bases, including Eskişehir and Bursa, both in north-west Turkey, and most recently Kars, 100 miles south-east of Artvin, until last year the event was cancelled by Kars's incoming mayor, a member of the Islamist Justice and Development Party which has been in power since 2002.

The festival's founders, Başak Emre and Ahmet Boyacıoğlu, cast around for a new host. Half a dozen mayors were solicited, unsuccessfully; it was, they say, very, very difficult, "The mayors were afraid," recalls Emre, the festival's unfeasibly glamorous director (below right, photo: Murat Kocaağa). "Afraid of the public's reactions, politically and religiously." Artvin sits at a safe distance from the powder keg of the Kurdish region in the South-East but, all the same, to import a ready-made festival from outside is to court uncertainty and dissent: "We support some of your ‘Anti' section, but not all," advised one Artvin politician, who wondered why the programme included films against sexism.

BasakStill, what better marketing opportunity to promote the town as a tourist destination and the sensational landscapes as a film location? What better way to fill all those empty hotel rooms in the middle of winter? 60 per cent of visitors to the region come from within Turkey; at the tourist office, a tiny, spartan place secreted away down a side street, I'm told that precisely 345 Brits visited Artvin last year. Some room for expansion there, surely. The province suffers from its extreme isolation. The population is in slow decline, with an Artvinian diaspora scattered throughout Turkey. The cost of living is high. But the region is changing. Dramatic dams are under construction and will in time provide 20 per cent of the country's electricity.

On my final evening, I spoke briefly with the Mayor of Artvin, Emin Özgün, a regular, genial presence at the dinners and late-night drinking parties. The festival definitely seemed to be a success in his book: "These are good people," he declared, flushed and beaming, before setting down his glass of red wine to spin a giddy round or two with the local folklore dancing troupe. But what happens when all the excitement is over and the caravan moves on? Well, Eskişehir and Bursa have started their own film festivals. Kars has its own cinema, and now Artvin has one too. When the Festival on Wheels is no longer required there, it will have fulfilled its mission.

Road_to_ArtvinThe next morning, as we trundled back to Trabzon down the mountain road (left, photo: Sheila Johnston) while dawn broke over the tea fields, I reflected on the fiery dedication of the organisers and the humbling enthusiasm of its audiences. As Turkey continues its long, forlorn petition for European Union membership (a petition that the left-wing intellectuals I spoke with eyed, in any case, with mixed feelings), the Festival on Wheels betokens people's hunger, in the very remotest corners of the country, to seek out and commune with the wider world.

12th Festival of European Films on Wheels – Kars Turkey

Ron Holloway, Berlin, 30 November 2006

Want to know why I would rank 12th Festival of European Films on Wheels (03-26 November 2006) among the best on the 2006 calendar? First of all, though hardly the primary reason, this sprawling festival event ran for four weeks – nearly the entire month of November! – in four major cities, two in Turkey and two just across its eastern borders. Organized by founder-director Ahmet Boyacioglu, and supported by the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism, this year’s Festival on Wheels began its route in Ankara (November 03-09), moved on to Kars (November 10-16) in eastern Turkey, then crossed the border to Tbilisi (November 17-21) in Georgia, and finished its trek in Baku (November 23-26) in Azerbaijan on the Caspian Sea. The Baku segment of the festival was the hardest to arrange, confirmed Boyacioglu.

Why this splurge of European film culture in three countries better described as Eurasian? Maybe because Ahmet Boyacioglu is a drifter too, a programmer who likes being on the road. After studying medicine in Germany, he worked as a practicing surgeon for a decade, first in Germany, then in Turkey. On the side, he practiced his hobby – running a popular film club under the Ankara Cinema Association banner. As fate would have it, Ahmet’s hobby eventually got the better of him. Friends and contacts at the European embassies in the Turkish capital urged him to found the Ankara International Short Film Festival. This, in turn, led to the first European Festival on Wheels twelve years ago. Friends from the Ankara embassies make it a point to join the entourage somewhere along the way.

Another major reason for the festival’s success is the current revival of Turkish cinema, thanks mostly to two acclaimed Turkish directors, Nuri Bilge Ceylan and Zeki Demirkubuz. Ceylan’s Uzak (Distant, 2003) and Iklimler (Climates, 2006), both highlights of the Cannes competition, confirmed him as a master at probing the loneliness of the soul and rightly drew comparison with the cinema of Bresson and Tarkovsky. Demirkubuz’s back-to-back Yazgi (Fate) (Turkey) and Itiraf (Confession) (Turkey) (2002), both hits in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes, marked the beginning of the director’s “Tales of Darkness” cycle, films notable for their restrained moral realism and dissatisfaction with a complacent Turkish society. His latest production, Kader (Destiny), a searing psychological road movie, was premiered out-of-competition in Kars, where the final scenes of this doomed love story was filmed.

It was at his point that I joined the Festival on Wheels in the mountains of eastern Turkey, a short distance from the borders to Armenia and Georgia. The Mayor of Kars, who sponsored the Golden Goose Prize to award the best film in a ten-entry competition, greeted foreign guests at the opening night gala with an expressed desire to entice international film production to Kars. Since excursions had been arranged to nearby archaeological monuments, some guests were seen carrying in their festival bag a copy of Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk’s latest novel Kar (Snow, 2005). A poetic love story set in Kars during the 1990s, Snow also focuses on the religious and political conflicts that are shaping Turkey today as the country seeks membership in the European Union.

The Golden Goose went to a worthy entry. Özer Kizitan’s Takva (A Man’s Fear of God) (Turkey) depicts the agony of a simple man chosen by a money-hungry Sheikh to collect rent owed to the sect. Slowly, his personality changes as he sinks into a despairing depression, for he cannot reconcile his innate fear of God with the ways of the world. Although awarded at Toronto and at the national festival in Antalya, Takva ( the term embraces both a fear of God and an abstinence from sin) has yet to be officially released in Turkey. One can understand why, with religious fanaticism currently on the rise in the muslim world. Just as impressive was Reha Erdem’s Bes vakit (Times and Winds), programmed in the “Turkish Cinema 2006” section and praised by critics at Toronto and Rome. A meditative portrait of life in a Turkish village on the Aegean coast, feudal customs are questioned in the harsh treatment handed out by fathers to sons, simply because this is the way it has always been in the past. Erdem’s sure hand with nonprofessionals in this youth film makes him a director to watch in the future. And, as the title hints, Times and Winds is a film that draws its narrative power from metaphors rather than dialogue.

The festival’s sidebars in the 100-page catalogue tipped Ahmet Boyacioglu’s hand as an insightful programmer with a knack for resurrecting forgotten treasures of European cinema. In “A Century with Visconti” you could see his masterpiece Il gattopardo (The Leopard) (Italy, 1963). Alexander Mackendrick’s evergreen The Lady Killers (UK, 1955) was featured in “Best European Comedies.” In “Surrealist Films” there was Luis Buñuel’s controversial La fantôme de la liberté (The Phantom of Liberty) (France, 1974), in which the 75-year-old director hadn’t lost his touch since his attack on the bourgeoisie in L’Age d’or (The Golden Age) (France, 1930). For the series “Carte Blanche à Yuri Norstein” the search for the legendary director’s animation masterpiece Skayka skazok (The Tale of Tales) (USSR, 1978) led the festival staff all the way to the United States to find a presentable print. Last, but not least, Michael Dudok de Wit’s Oscar-awarded cartoon Father and Daughter (Netherlands, 2000), a poignant tale of longing, was booked for “A Selection of Dutch Animation Films for Children.”

Even the festival trailer was a knockout. Ecstatic film fans of all ages ride a reel of film as its unspools high in the wild blue yonder. For more on this year’s remarkable Festival on Wheels, download www.europeanfilmfestival.com.

Award

Golden Goose for Best European Feature Film

Takva(A Man’s Fear of God) (Turkey), dir Özer Kizitan

11. BURSA – FESTIVAL ON WHEELS
By all counts, Turkey’s Festival on Wheels – aka European Film Festival is a unique event on the film calendar. For those hearty enough to join this cross-country caravan, the 11th Festival on Wheels (11-30 November 2005) began in the capital city of Ankara (November 11-17), where festival director Ahmet Boyacioglu maintains an office at the Ankara Cinema Association. Six days later, it moved on to Bursa (November 18-24) in the northwest, the first capital of the Ottoman Turks back in 1320. At this juncture, again a six-day stopover, the festival became an international event (for the second year in a row).

The festival Festival on Wheels thrives on tributes, retrospectives, restored prints (12 to date), shorts and documentaries, its own subtitling system, a circulating archieve of Turkish classics, popular hits on video and DVD, and book publications on cinema.

This year’s festival opened in Ankara with a special screening of Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin (USSR, 1926) with live orchestral accompaniment. The late great Ömer Kavur (1944-2005), whose Encounter premiered in the competition at the 2004 Cannes festival, was remembered in a memorial. The Cinema&Anarchy retro featured Dadaist classics by Jean Vigo, Rene Clair, and Man Ray -including his seldom seen 1926 Emak Bakia (Basque for Don’t Bother Me). Italian screenwriter Tonino Guerra was honored in a publication as a poet of the cinema for his colloboration with Federico Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni, Francesco Rosi, and the Taviani Brothers.

At the European Coordination of Film Festivals annual conference in Brussels last year I met Wilhelm Faber of the Berlin Film Festival. When he found out I was Turkish, he said that as a student in Paris he’d seen a film that changed his life. It was after watching Sürü (The Herd), a film written by Yılmaz Güney and directed by Zeki Ökten, that he decided to work in cinema. And 20 years later he was working at the Berlin Film Festival. There are some films that have the power to change an individual, a city or even a country.

The 10 Best Turkish Films were determined in a poll carried out by the Ankara Cinema Association. They will have their first world screening at the 39th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. The project has been a collaborative effort and in this respect I would like to extend my sincere thanks to Eva Zaoralova and Julietta Zacharova . I also wish to thank Erkan Mumcu, the Turkish Minister of Culture and Tourism, Dr. Abdurrahman Çelik, General Director of the Copyright and Cinema Department of the Ministery of Culture and Tourism, Sema Fener, the marketing and sales manager EI – Kodak Turkey, Cemal Okan, the managing director of Fono Film Studio and Muzaffer Hiçdurmaz, chairman of the Turkish Association of Film Directors, for their valuable contributions to the project.

Since 1914, Turkey has generated some 6058 feature films. Of these, 4425 were made between 1960 and 1986. During the 1960s, in particular, cinema was the most popular form of entertainment in Turkey. To be part of a project that incorporates the 10 most important and memorable films of Turkish cinema history is a great honour for me. These films represent Turkish cinema at its very best and promise audiences a visual feast.

To watch films from one country in a condensed period of time is something like making a journey to that country. The audience learns about everyday life in that country, its customs, traditions and social problems when their previous knowledge was probably sketchy. They have the chance to gain a deeper insight into the country. Most foreigners who come to Turkey on business or for pleasure leave only with memories of Istanbul and Antalya, the Cappadocia region or sun-kissed beaches.

Now, however, you can head off to a small town in Anatolia and spend a few nights in The Motherland Hotel. The hotel is dark and dilapidated and the owner, Zebercet, a solitary, obsessive kind of guy. You’ll find him a little weird, but he’s basically harmless. He’s pinned his hopes on a mysterious woman, who stayed one night in the hotel. As she was leaving, she said she’d come back. And there he is waiting. After 110 minutes you’ll be saying goodbye to Zebercet, but you’re unlikely to forget him for quite some time.

In another cheap hotel – this time in Izmir – you’ll meet Yusuf, Uğur and Bekir, three hopeless characters created by Zeki Demirkubuz. Daunted by the outside world, Yusuf is reluctant to leave the prison he’s been in, even though his sentence is served. Bekir, bound to Uğur by a strange obsession, is heading slowly towards self-destruction. You may spot the poster for Charlie Chaplin’s The Kid in a shop window while Yusuf is out with Çilem, Uğur and Bekir’s deaf and dumb daughter. But don’t be fooled: Masumiyet(Innocence) is an unequivocal tragedy.

The Girl With The Red Scarf, played by Türkan Şoray, is another acquaintance you’ll make in small-town Anatolia. This is one of Turkish cinema’s greatest love stories and the work of master director, Atıf Yılmaz. Making his directorial debut in 1951, Yılmaz has put his name to 113 films to date and is still actively involved in film-making.

Should you be heading Adana way, don’t be shy of taking a ride in Cabbar’s cart. Both cart and horses may have seen better days, but climb aboard and you’ll be treated to a black and white masterpiece from 1970 that marked a turning point in Turkish cinema. And, like Yılmaz Güney’s father, you’ll find yourself embarking on a journey towards Hope.

Back in Istanbul, be sure to dive into the backstreets of Beyoğlu. There you’ll meet Muhsin Bey, an organizer in the music business who has never erred from the straight and narrow, never compromised on his principles. You’ll like him: he’s a little behind the times but a good-hearted and thoroughly scrupulous sort, who takes under his wing a young Anatolian with singing ambitions.

Perhaps you’ll also drop by at a tiny house on the fringes of Istanbul and witness the everyday struggles of a family who left Anatolia for the big city. Gelin (The Bride) takes up the theme of migration, a major part of people’s lives in Turkey, and gives a taste of the cinema of Lütfi Akad, another master director.

Did you ever get to see Yol(The Road) You remember the story of five prisoners released from jail on a week’s leave? And Tarık Akan in the role of Seyit Ali, as he trudges through an icy blizzard with his wife on his back, flogging her every now and then so she won’t get frostbite? I would defy any cinephile to remain unmoved by this masterpiece, which was written behind bars by Yılmaz Güney, directed by Şerif Gören and cut in Switzerland after Güney made his break from jail.

You might find the clan leader, Hamo Aga, a little disconcerting: of awesome appearance and booming voice, it’s almost as if he’ll step off the silver screen while he showers threats on the people around him. In Sürü(The Herd) Tuncel Kurtiz gives one of the finest performances in Turkish cinema, and you’ll find that the film has lost none of its potency even 25 years after the making.

You might also find yourself stumbling on a small Anatolian village and witnessing the remorseless struggle between two brothers, symbols of good and evil respectively. Susuz Yaz (Dry Summer) brought Turkish cinema its first international success, winning the Golden Bear at Berlin in 1964. The film is also an ideal opportunity to get to know Metin Erksan, one of Turkish cinema’s most original directors.

The final title in our line-up of the 10 Best Turkish Films is Uzak (Distant), a work by one of Turkish cinema’s leading representatives, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, who has one short film and three features to his name since he began directing in 1995. The film, which scooped both the Special Jury Award and the Best Actor Award (for its two lead actors) at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival, is a study of loneliness and lack of communication in the big city set in a snow-draped Istanbul.

Welcome to Turkey...

Dr. Ahmet Boyacıoğlu
Chairman, Ankara Cinema Association

Years ago when I habited to rest at the Otel Fahri in Uludağ st summers end; I never would have thought that Bursa would have come to play an important role in my cinema venture. However for nine years Bursa has become the city that witnesses my love for cinema. This is due to the satisfying program of the Festival of European Films and the warm hospitality of the Bursa Municipality.

That this year the attention of the viewers of Bursa to the Festival of European Films seems to have increased is an indication that the attempt of the Festival to cultivate a perceptive viewer has come to bear fruit. It would not be wrong to attribute the fact that the vacant theaters of the fist two years are now filled to the brim, to the viewers of Bursa having accepted European Films. Those who have watched these films that seldom get to be screened commercially, come to realize that cinema does not merely consist of American films, and that cinema plays an important role in European Culture. The program of the ninth Festival did a lot to verify this truth.

The chance to once again watch masterpieces of the Turkish Cinema such as; The Road, The Herd, Muhsin Bey, Innocence, The Woman With Red Scarf, Motherland Hotel, The Bride and Distant was a privilege. Another important part of the program was the retrospective of Jean-Luc Godard under the title of “The Madman or Genius of Cinema”. I for myself have watched Breathless, Chinese Girl and Alphaville once again with exhilaration. And once again I could answer the question of whether Godard is mad or a genius, but I realized that my opinion that he should have been a litterateur instead of a cineaste was once again strengthened.

The films of Coral Reed, Ingmar Bergman, Claude Sautet, Bertrand Tavernier, Pedro Almodovar and Michael Haneke were presented within the “Best of Europe” section. I do not doubt that watching one of these directors’ films is an important event for passionate cinema viewers. For me one of the first surprises of the Festival was the shorts of Aki Kaurismaki. The five-six minute shorts of this great creator from Finland that implied at his features, was an incredible presentation for those who know the Kaurismaki Cinema. The second surprise of the Festival was the films of Raoul Servais, whose name I only knew from cinema books. The films of Raoul Servais, whose colorful person I had the opportunity to meet, are the most beautiful examples with their art and political content that it is possible to produce animation outside of Walt Disney perceptions. The “Short is Good” and other parts of the program that present the films of young European directors, included quite precious surprises for the cinema lover.

I have had the opportunity to attend festivals, national and international, big scale and small, sometimes as a viewer, and sometimes as a jury member. I would not exaggerate if I stated that the reason for the special place of the Festival of European Films in my eyes is both its privileged program, and warm atmosphere of friendship created in Bursa, that I have never witnessed in another festival. If that were not the case I would not travel to Bursa with great enthusiasm and then return to Istanbul quite reluctantly every year.

Rekin Teksoy

As someone attending the Bursa branch of the Festival on Wheels for the first time (having attended the Izmir branch numerous times) I can not stress enough how pleased I was by the overall organization of the event. First I have to say that I have been to many festivals (Istanbul, Ankara, Thessaloniki etc.) but I have never encountered such a warm atmosphere in any of them. I realized that we cinema writers live quite estranged lives in Istanbul; everyone is in a hurry, living worlds apart. But during the festival at Bursa, we find the opportunity to get to know each other, chatting hours at a time, discussing cinema. Bursa becomes the location where we isolated critics can come together and collaborate. There is an incredible synergy, and the thorough organization of both the Bursa Culture Art and Tourism Foundation and The Ankara Cinema Association plays an important role in its creation. The members of these organizations do not seem to regard cinema critics as a burden, but as friends. I have never experienced such amicable treatment in any other festival. And, elsewhere, it is never as easy as this to interview guest actors and directors. Forget the interview, there is such a communal atmosphere that you experience the event as one with the guests and, at the many dinner parties, you can interact with the guests directly. As nobody is quite relaxed in an interview, I believe that this is highly important:- actually to be able to talk, to chat with a director after watching his film. This is exactly what Bursa offers. The organization is great, everything is well-coordinated, the schedule is set. The transportation between the accommodation and the Festival centre is excellent, the bus schedule quite on punctual target. If you miss the bus, as can happen to anyone (it did to me!), the Festival is quite understanding and even arranges for a car.

Thanks to the Festival in particular for the bags and t-shirts distributed upon our arrival in Bursa, I am still using them, and many thanks to the Ankara Cinema Association and The Bursa Culture Art Foundation, for giving us this wonderful festival. I look forward to the next year.

Firat Yucel
Altyazi Magazine

The 9th Festival of European films was without doubt one of the two main cinema events of 2003 in Turkey, the other one being ‘Distant’ winning the Grand Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

While the viewers of commercial films barricade themselves in their homes watching pirate VCDs, whilst theaters remain vacant with the exception of a few blockbusters, whilst the new generation chooses ‘cult’ over culture, believing art to be the ‘thing’ presented to them by ‘artists’ visible in magazine programs, whilst all this happens, the Ankara Cinema Association once again produces something wonderful; the Festival of European Films, re-creating the miraculous event that we have witnessed for eight years, bigger, better, richer, at a time when hope is fading to nothing…

They have managed to let the love of cinema flourish within the people and especially the isolated youth of Anatolia. Diligently commiting themselves to their task of introducing people to real art and real cinema, they have now broadened the area of influence. We have watched a little seed of cinema flower in Bursa over the last 8 years, seeing it become a sapling and now a tree that no one would dare to cut down, and we have come to the conclusion that if it is let to continue, the festival will bear the same fruit in other cities. The grand tree planted in Bursa that has now etched the signature of the seventh art into the cultural identity of that city has given forth seeds, seeds that were planted this year in Kayseri, Malatya and Kars with the sensitive and able support of their local administrations.

Of course the example of Bursa is unique in Turkey. There, we have witnessed the education of viewers who have been directly introduced to the greatest masterpieces of cinema; they have learned slowly to accept them, maturing in their viewing so that they have come to expect high quality; now, for them, a lesser event would be unacceptable; the unforgettable scenes of the greatest of movies have come to be included in the mental image of Bursa.

For me Bursa now is not only a city where one can climb Uludag, visit tombs, eat Iskender Kebab, buy towels; it has become a city of culture where the best of cinema can be seen, and where cineastes meet; film-makers and critics and lovers of the art of cinema. From now on it is not only the old capital of the Ottoman Empire but one of the future capitals of cinema.

Alin Taşçiyan
Cinema Critic – Milliyet

The Festival of European Films a.k.a. The Festival on Wheels continues to journey the Anatolia from end to end; its load never light, nevertheless extremely precious. The Festival neither goes out of fashion nor need maintenance during these voyages. Its idea is so original and it fulfills such an important gap in Turkeys Cultural environment, that it will preserve these properties for years to come.

The Festival appearing to ignore the Festival rich Istanbul, nonetheless stirs the envy of the viewers of Istanbul with its privileged program, encouraging them to join its journey. One of its most important stops is doubtless Bursa. With the warm reception of The Ankara Cinema Association and the Bursa Municipality, these annual days in Bursa have come to play an important role in out lives.

This year we, the critics of Istanbul, have come to experience the unique atmosphere of The Festival of European Films, in Bursa. The films presented to us were once again excellent and of great import. The ten best films in Turkish film history, selected through a survey, were once again presented on the wide screen to the audience. The effort to re-press these films and make their screening as a program at international festivals has come to be an important addition to the Turkish culture. The attraction of the retrospective of French New-Wave leading director Jean-Luc Godard, whose films are still cause of discourse, as well as the program made up of Aki Kaurismäki’s shorts have created an opportunity not to be missed.

With the Best of Europe section of the program we have been presented with a wide selection of masterpieces that ranged from the 40s to the present, from England to Finland. We have been thrilled by Carol Reed’s The Third Man, amused by Almadóvar’s Women on the verge of a Nervous Breakdown, mystified by Haneke’s 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance. The most interesting examples of shorts of the current European cinema were presented within the Short is Good section of the Festival. It is important to stress the importance of the Festival in presenting the Turkish viewer with both short films and animation. The animation program made up by the selection of Sayoko Kinoshita, vise-president and director of the Hiroshima Animation Film Festival (who was one of the most colorful personalities of this year’s Festival) has presented the viewer with animations of utmost importance form Europe. In addition, the program made up of the films of the great Belgian animator Roul Servais has left us breathless. Apart from the films themselves, seeing and meeting the creator came to be an unforgettable experience.

Of Course the Festival does not forget the current works of the European Cinema. Within the “Europe Europe” section we have been given the opportunity to watch some of the best, prize rich films that have journeyed from festival to festival. Patrice Leconte’s “The Man on The Train”, Fernando León de Aranoa’s “Sunny Mondays”, Dagur Kári’s “Albino Noi”, Hans-Christian Schmid’s “Distant Lights” and the stunning example of collective cinema from Norway “Utopia” are some that come immediately to mind.

I do not believe it is necessary to once again stress the fact that the Festival of European Films manages to mesmerize us with its program every year, causing us to look forward to the next once it is over… we and the cinema lovers all over Anatolia are indebted to the festival organizers. Our lives will become more and more colorful thanks to their endless energy. Once again, thanks. Have a nice journey…

Engin Ertan
Sinema Magazine

Dan Fainaru - 21 Dec 2007

For the last 13 years Basak Emre and Ahmet Boyacioglu have been bringing world cinema to the farthest corners of Turkey. Their European Film Festival on Wheels, running since 1995, starts in late autumn in Ankara, then, for the following month, stages repeat performances of the programme in at least three other locations.

Emre, a management graduate, and Boyacioglu, a former physician and previously Turkey’s Eurimages delegate, met while working for the Ankara Film Festival. “We realised there was much more to be done for cinema (in Turkey) which was practically non-existent outside the big cities,” explains Boyacioglu.

The programme consists of new Turkish and European films, tributes and shorts. By Boyacioglu’s calculations, the festival has covered some 40,000km.

“The course is determined by the invitations we get,” explains Emre. “Since our budget is limited, we can provide the programme and organisation but the hosts must cover the local production costs.”

One of these locations is chosen as the international focus of the festival with invited international guests and since 2006, a jury deciding the best films in competition.

“We have managed to re-open closed theatres in places where there were none left,” says Emre. “We’ve brought films to cities that were supposedly averse to cinema; and we’ve even visited Turkish communities in countries like Greece, Georgia and Bosnia.”

When municipalities are not forthcoming with their invitations, they look for other partners. “This year,” says Boyacioglu, “we went to Samsun, a city on the Black Sea. The mayor didn’t want us but the local university and the governor did.”

Operating the festival since 1998 through the Ankara Cinema Association, Emre and Boyacioglu say their job has not become any easier. “We started with the help of the Ministry of Culture and the European Union,” explains Emre. “But the Ministry’s contribution this year was a paltry $73,000 (EUR60,000). The remaining $87,500 (EUR50,000) comes from private sponsorships – a ridiculously low budget. As for the support of the EU, it has disintegrated into thin air.”

All of which may affect plans next year. Short of substantial government help, they will be forced to give up their forays abroad. The pretence of a European umbrella will likely go. “We’ll be the Festival on Wheels,” says Emre, “and we’ll show films from all over the world.” She adds: “Ankara may not be our departure point; cinemas there are asking for fees we cannot cover.”

“On the other hand,” says Boyacioglu, “we’ve already been approached by a city which we haven’t reached before, Urfa, at the eastern end of the country, and we’ll definitely go there next year.”

The festival intends to step into production, with five shorts from episodes from Orhan Pamuk’s novel Snow. They will be shot by newcomers but with the same crew, under the supervision of director Zeki Demirkubuz. All five will be eventually shown together as one feature film.

Turkey takes cinema on the road
By JAY WEISSBERG

Posted: Fri., Dec. 14, 2007, 3:13pm PT
Fourteen films compete in film festival
1/6/08 6:00am

KARS, Turkey — No other festival on earth covers as many miles as Turkey’s Festival on Wheels — more than 25,000 of them by the organizers’ reckoning.

Now in its 13th year, the budget is still tight but its success rate in creating audiences and bringing good cinema to provincial cities is nothing short of impressive.

After debuting in Ankara each year, the show literally hits the road, traveling to various regions not just in Turkey but, in recent editions, further afield including Tbilisi, Gerogia.

One city is designated the international hub where filmmakers, journalists and industry folk gather for screenings and workshops. For the past four years Kars, on the Turkish-Armenian border, has been that place.

“When we first came to Kars there were no cinemas,” says fest director Basak Emre, so they brought their own 35mm projector and set up screenings in the local community hall.

The festival was such a success with the locals that Mayor Naif Alibeyoglu, a big supporter, had the hall fitted out with projectors, a good screen and Dolby digital so the city now has a fulltime cinema for the first time in years.

Made famous by “Snow,” the novel by Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk, Kars bears little resemblance to its fictional namesake, and its liberal atmosphere has proved a fertile ground for an appreciation of the European films at the core of the fest.

This year’s edition, which ran Nov. 2-25, in Ankara, Kars, Samsun and Sarajevo, included Estonian pic “The Class,” Romania’s “The Rest is Silence” and Israel’s “My Father, My Lord,” as well as recent Turkish pics and a smattering of classics from Bresson to Antonioni.

Not all cities have always been so welcoming and others took time to nurture an audience.

“No one came from Bursa the first year there” recalls Emre, but repeat editions proved enormously popular with the locals.

Funding for this ambitious undertaking comes from a variety of national and regional sources as well as the fest’s fairy godmother of sorts, Norwegian oil company Statoil.