Drama and documentary selections top Adana festival
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Drama and documentary selections top Adana festival
ADANA - As the Golden Boll International Film Festival continues apace in the southern city of Adana, the best films in each section are coming to the forefront. One of the most anxiously awaited films among the National Feature Films Competition is ’On the Way to School.’ An animated film was also among the most liked films in the festival.
The traditional "Love Parade" wound its way through Adana on Wednesday, allowing famed names of Turkish cinema and honored directors to salute the citizens of the host city for the Golden Boll (Altın Koza) International Film Festival.
A convoy of nearly 15 cars filled with celebrities started touring around the city, led by a band, at 6 p.m. and drew great interest from the people of Adana. As the festival continues full speed ahead with its film screenings and side events, the most well regarded films in each section are gaining prominence.
One of the most anxiously awaited films among the National Feature Films Competition is "Ä°ki Dil Bir Bavul" (On the Way to School), in which a teacher starts working in a faraway village in Turkey.
The film depicts the life of a teacher, alone in a village as an authority of the state, and also alone in his interaction with his students. Orhan Eskiköy wrote the screenplay for the film and co-directed it with Özgür DoÄŸan. Kurdish children portray most of the students in the movie, which may well be a true story of today’s situation in Turkey.
In the World Cinema category, one film drew particular admiration from film critics as well as the Adana audience: Directed, edited and produced by Canadian Petr Lom, "Letters to the President" is an observation of the regime of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
The only foreigner given such access, filmmaker Lom was allowed to travel on several of the president’s populist trips to the countryside, and his movie shows a very different Ahmadinejad than the one portrayed by the international media: less the dangerous leader and more the ordinary, but charismatic, politician.
During Lom’s trips, the president received many letters Äž the government claims 10 million Äž from poor Iranians asking for help. The filmmaker uses these letters as its narrative thread, and as a device to provide a glimpse into a country that is largely closed to outsiders. While it finds no evidence for the government’s claim that its charity solves the problems described in most of letters, the film does show that these promises kindle the desperate hopes of the poor.
"Letters to the President" was screened Wednesday for the first time in Turkey with the participation of the director, who was roundly applauded after the film.
Animation by young Turkish filmmaker
Also among the most liked films screened during the festival was an animation that drew the interest of many people. Although the movie’s name, "Gemeinschaft," sounds German, it was made by a young Turkish filmmaker, Adana local Özlem Akın. Born in the city in 1986, Akın grew up in Ä°zmir and graduated from the film and television department of Istanbul’s Bilgi University in 2008. She made her first film in 2006 and has made seven movies since then while continuing her education at the animation department of Film School Zlin in the Czech Republic, considered one of the best schools in this field. "Gemeinschaft" is Akın’s latest animated work and one well worth seeing.
The festival continues with many premieres and screenings of internationally awarded films. On Friday, the head of the National Feature Films Competition jury, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, will participate in a question-and-answer program at the Metropol Municipality Theater. The famous director will be joined by Ebru Ceylan, who worked as an actor, art director and script writer on his films; Mehmet Eryılmaz, who acted in his 2006 film "Ä°klimler" (The Climates); Ercan Kesal, one of the script writers and actors in "Üç Maymun" (Three Monkeys); and Hatice Aslan, another actor in "Üç Maymun."