33rd Istanbul Film Festival
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33rd Istanbul Film Festival April 5–17, 2014

This year, Istanbul Modern Cinema hosts three sections of the Istanbul Film Festival: While the selection “What a Pair!”, compiled by film critics and scholars, celebrates the 100th anniversary of cinema in Turkey with a very special program of 38 films, the section “The Cultural Legacy of the Manaki Brothers” features the complete restored works of the brothers Yanaki and Milton Manaki, who started making films in 1905, were the first filmmakers of the Balkans, and citizens of the Ottoman empire. In the third section, “Creating a Nation through Cinema,” prepared for the 100th anniversary of World War I, film critic Rüdiger Suchsland's documentary Caligari, When Horror Comes To Cinema (Caligari - Wie der Horror ins Kino kam) and a masterpiece of German cinema People On Sunday (Menschen am Sonntag) will be screened together. A total of nine panels will be held at Istanbul Modern Cinema in conjunction with the screenings in each section.

WHAT A PAIR
Film critics Engin Ertan and Fatih Özgüven, academicians Selim Euüboğlu and Umut Tümay Arslan with Azize Tan, while constructing this programme on the centenary of Turkish cinema, realised that certain themes stood out. The themes tackled by the film pairs included in this section, which takes its name from a film as well, find a place within the Turkish cinema in a wide range from gender representations to passion of power, from the perception of city and the province to Istanbul and even Beyoğlu becoming stages of storytelling, from the Kurdish issue to minorities. Because, the 100-year-old cinema of Turkey, in terms of the themes it has addressed, certainly mirrors the country called Turkey.
Talks
Fantastic and Horror in Turkish Cinema
What is the state of our political cinema?
What is the state of our arthouse cinema?
Video Art and Turkish Cinema
“What are we laughing at?” – Comedy in Turkish Cinema
Kitsch and Queer in Turkish Cinema
Making Documentary Film

THE FIRST WORLD WAR AND MODERNITY IN CRISIS
On the centenary of the World War I, the Istanbul Film Festival screens two films pertaining to post-war Germany.

SPECIAL SCREENING
Aykan Safoğlu’s Offwhite Tulips looks for writer James Baldwin in Istanbul, while Isaac Julien’s Looking for Langston searches for the traces of poet langston Hughes in Harlem through london. Both films weigh desire and creativity from a prism of memories.