Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival stands as testimony that despite the pandemic and the economy, Turkish cinema is in fine fettle.<\/b>
\nTurkey\u2019s Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival, which historically has always been the country\u2019s prime local cinema catalyst, stands as testimony that despite impediments due to the pandemic and the country\u2019s economy Turkish filmmakers are in fine fettle. \u201cAt the start of the year people said: \u2018You will not be able to assemble 10 [Turkish] films due to the pandemic,\u2019\u201d because \u201cthey thought nothing was getting made,\u201d says Antalya fest chief Ahmet Boyac\u0131o\u011flu. Instead, programmers for the event\u2019s upcoming 58th edition that will run Oct.2-9 in the sprawling resort city on Turkey\u2019s Southern coast, received 44 submissions for the national competition that is at its core. And the 10 features they\u2019ve selected rep \u201cthe strongest selection at Antalya in maybe the past 10 years,\u201d he says. Antalya\u2019s artistic director Ba\u015fak Emre points out that with the Turkish lira hitting all-time lows against Western currencies and waning local government support for film production that now amounts to a mere roughly \u20ac200,000 ($232,000) in total, the country\u2019s producers are increasingly resorting to co-productions with European partners to get their projects off the ground. This is reflected in the fact that six out of 10 films in Antalya\u2019s national competition are co-productions. Some made in tandem with several European countries as is the case with first-time director Emre Kayi\u015f\u2019 \u201cAnatolian Leopard,\u201d which launched from the Toronto Film Festival\u2019s Discovery section and is a co-production between Turkey, Poland, Germany and Denmark. The winners will be picked by a seven-member jury headed by Turkish writer-director Emin Alper (\u201cFrenzy\u201d). Since the 1960s Turkey\u2019s oldest film festival has been \u201cthe Mecca of Turkish cinema,\u201d says Boyac\u0131o\u011flu, who with Emre also runs Turkey\u2019s traveling Festival on Wheels. They took Antalya\u2019s reins in 2019 following a spell during which the fest\u2019s national competition had been eliminated as a separate strand, sparking protests, and even a boycott, from the local film community. Which is not to say that Antalya is now an insular event. \u201cWe still have an international competition,\u201d which, Emre notes, is \u201ca very important component\u201d of their vision for the fest. This year it comprises recent global circuit standouts such as Venice Golden Lion winner \u201cHappening,\u201d by Audrey Diwan, as well as Mia Hansen-L\u00f8ve\u2019s \u201cBergman Island,\u201d and Ry\u00fbsuke Hamaguchi\u2019s \u201cDrive My Car,\u201d which were both at Cannes. However, due to pandemic-related restrictions and their impact on travel the international presence at Antalya will be very small. Local attendance, instead, is expected to be large with ticket sales already indicating that, just like last year, Antalya\u2019s three socially-distanced outdoor venues for a total of 1,250 usable seats will be fully booked. Large delegations will be coming for the Turkish films, all of which will be having their national premieres. So even though the Antalya Film Forum co-production platform industry component will be held online (see separate story) the Turkish film industry\u2019s in-person presence will be robust. Below is a rundown of the 58th Antalya Film Festival national competition titles that give the present pulse of Turkish cinema. \u201cAnatolian Leopard\u201d \u2013 This timely drama by first-time filmmaker Emre Kayi\u015f is about the director of Ankara\u2019s zoo fighting for the zoo not to be shut down in the face of urban renewal, privatization and Arab investors who want to convert it into an amusement park. \u201cCommitment Hasan\u201d \u2014 In this second installment of his \u201cCommitment\u201d trilogy auteur Semih Kaplanoglu tells the tale of \u201ca Muslim fighting his own soul,\u201d as Boyac\u0131o\u011flu puts it. Pic, which launched from Un Certain Regard in Cannes, is set in a windswept but fertile corner of Turkey where a man named Hasan makes a living from his father\u2019s orchard and tomato field. When Hasan and his wife are accepted for Hajj, their imminent pilgrimage to Mecca causes him to question his conscience as he scrutinizes his past and to confront his contradictions. \u201cPure White\u201d \u2014 In this religion-related drama by Necip \u00c7a\u011fhan \u00d6zdemir, the proto-Islamic protagonist Vural, who is a seemingly pious husband and a father, has a secret that causes his life to take a sudden dark turn when a seemingly minor sin becomes a threat to his uncomplicated life. \u201cTogether, We Shall Die\u201d \u2014 This romancer directed by Hakk\u0131 Kurtulu\u015f and Melik Sara\u00e7o\u011flu sees the protagonist Mazhar returning to Istanbul after studying in Canada. He falls head over heels in love with his best friend\u2019s lover, which leads to a passionate and devastating affair in the midst of the vicissitudes of the sprawling and tumultuous Turkish city that also becomes a key character in the pic. \u201cDialogue\u201d \u2014 This is a film within a film \u201clike Truffaut\u2019s \u2018Day for Night,\u2019 \u201d says Boyac\u0131o\u011flu. It\u2019s a first feature by Ali Tansu Turhan in which the two protagonists are actors playing a couple in a relationship that is ending and fall in love with each other. \u201cBetween Two Dawns\u201d \u2014 This Turkish-French-Romanian co-production helmed by writer-director Selman Nacar is a social drama about a young man facing a moral dilemma after a worker is injured in his family\u2019s sheet factory. The protagonist, Kadir, is forced to conspire in a cover-up that alters the lives of the people involved and unveils long-held secrets. \u201cThe Cage\u201d \u2014 Veteran auteur Cemil A\u011fac\u0131ko\u011flu\u2019s hard-hitting drama is about a former cop named Hasan who was expelled from the police force and now works in a cheap hotel in the back streets of Istanbul\u2019s Historic Peninsula where the down and out\u2019s live. There his only friend is an immigrant woman named Illiona with whom he dreams of a better life. Hasan feels trapped as he struggles to clear his name in court in a desperate effort to solve his problem with the police force and get his job back. \u201cKerr\u201d \u2014 In this latest drama by minimalist moviemaker Tayfun Pirselimo\u011flu (\u201cHaze,\u201d \u201cHair,\u201d \u201cI\u2019m Not Him\u201d), a man named Can witnesses a murder in a small town where he has arrived to attend his father\u2019s funeral. He goes to the police and after taking his statement the cops forbid him from leaving the town. Then a quarantine is declared due to rabid dogs and he is accused of a non-specified crime. Other weird things happen and the town turns into a hell that he can\u2019t flee from. \u201cBrother\u2019s Keeper\u201d \u2014 This social drama based on director Ferit Karahan\u2019s own experience is about Kurdish kids living in fear at a Turkish boarding school. Pic launched earlier this year from Berlin\u2019s Panorama strand, where it won the section\u2019s Fipresci prize. It follows two friends, Yusef and Memo, at a secluded boarding school for Kurdish boys in the mountains of Eastern Anatolia. When Memo falls mysteriously ill, Yusuf to try to help his friend is forced to struggle through the bureaucratic obstacles put up by the school\u2019s repressive authorities. \u201cZuhal\u201d \u2014 In this darkly humorous first feature by screenwriter Nazli Elif Durlu, an upper middle class woman named Zuhal hears a cat meowing one night from her flat. At first she pays no attention, but after the meow continues all night she thinks the cat might be stuck in a nearby flat which forces her to communicate with her neighbors whom she has so far deliberately avoided.<\/p>\n