Istanbul Film Festival closed last night without awards, due to the cancellation of their main program (read
here the related article). Only the 10th edition of the
Meetings on the Bridge which was held on 15-16 April 2015 decided any awards and winners.
The workshops at the Meetings on the Bridge provided 8 feature films and 2 documentaries, along with 1 feature film and 1 documentary at the post-production stage. A total of 100 international filmmakers who came to Meetings on the Bridge to meet and network with the filmmakers from Turkey had a total of 450 meetings with the directors and producers of the projects and films in the workshops.
Meetings on the Bridge 2015 winners (®Ersin Durmus)
Upon the presentations in the Film Development Workshop, the international jury determined the award winners. The projects to receive support from the Turkish-German Co-Production Development Fund were determined by the fund representatives. The projects and films that won awards and fund support were announced at a ceremony held on 16 April. The Award Ceremony opened with speeches by Istanbul Film Festival Director Azize Tan and Head of Meetings on the Bridge Gülin Üstün.
The International Jury comprising of Gabrielle Dumon (Le Bureau Films), Giovanni Robbiano (Mediterranean Film Institute - MFI), Khalil Benkirane (Doha Film Institute), Meinolf Zurhorst (ZDF), and Sergio Garcia De Leaniz (
Eurimages) decided on the award winning projects.
Tarık Aktaş, director of Dead Horse Nebula received the Meetings on the Bridge Award of USD 10,000 from Gabrielle Dumon.
The project of Zekeriya Aydoğan, The Death of a Father and Son was presented the €10,000 CNC Award by Fanny Aubert Malaurie, The Cultural Attache of France.
Melodika Sound Post Production Award was presented to
Mahmut Fazıl Coşkun for his project
The Announcement, by Didem Oğuz, the co-founder of Melodika.
The Mediterranean Film Institute (MFI) Script and Development Workshop Award, which comprises four stages, was presented to Sinem Sakaoğlu for her project The Crooked House by Giovanni Robbiano from MFI. The director and scriptwriter of the project will participate in the scenario workshops, two of which will be on the Nisiros and Samos Islands of Greece in 2015 and two of which will be online.
Work in Progress Workshop winners
Following the cancellation of the screening on 12 April, a majority of films in the National Competition, National Documentary Competition, International Competition, Cinema in Human Rights Competition, Out of Competition, and New Turkish Cinema sections of the 34th Istanbul Film Festival decided to not be screened. The rest of the screenings went on normally. 3 of the 5 films that were selected for the Work in Progress Workshop decided to cancel the presentation of their films and therefore, the Work in Progress Award within the scope of the Meetings on the Bridge was also cancelled.
The 2 films that were presented to the distributors, sales companies and festival representatives within the Work in Progress Workshop are:
Ben Apaçi Değilim/I Am not Apache - Director Aytunç Akad, Producers Cahit Binici, Onur Koçak (İkinci Parti Prodüksiyon)
Mavi Bisiklet/Blue Bicycle - Director Ümit Köreken, Producer Nursen Çetin Köreken (Drama Film Prodüksiyon)
The offline editings of the films that are in the workshop are watched by Karel Och (Karlovy Vary Film Festival), Rickard Olsson (Picture Tree International) and Stienette Bosklopper (Circle Films) and then they made one to one meetings with the directors and the producers of the films.
®Marmara Media Merkezi
Turkish-German Co-Production Development Fund
The projects to be supported by the Turkish-German Co-Production Development Fund were also announced. Out of the 10 projects that applied, 7 of them were chosen unanimously by the jury and are as follows:
Mehmet Can Mertoğlu – Albüm/Album – €30.000
Co-producers: Hüseyin Karabey -
Asi Film (Turkey), Alexander Ris - Neue Mediopolis Filmproduktion (Germany)
Nefin Dinç – Antoine Köpe’nin Hatıraları/The Memoirs of Antoine Köpe – €20.000
Co-producers: İpek Kent -
Yedi Film (Turkey), Ufuk Genç - Cine Chromatix (Germany)
Çayan Demirel – Kardeş Türküler/Songs of Fraternity – €10.000
Co-producers: Ayşe Çetinbaş - Surela Film (Turkey), Zülfiye Akkulak - Newa Film (Germany)
Co-producers: Erol Mintaş - Mintaş Film (Turkey), Verena Graefe - Hoet (Germany)
