Distinguished director Zeki Demirkubuz will serve as the jury president of the National Golden Tulip Competition in the 34th Istanbul Film Festival, to be organised between 4-19 April 2015 by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV), sponsored by Akbank for the eleventh consecutive year.

Zeki Demirkubuz, who began working in film in 1986 as assistant to Zeki Ökten, assisted many directors before shooting his first feature film Block C (C Blok, 1994). Gaining international recognition with his second film Innocence (Masumiyet, 1997) which was screened at Venice Film Festival, Demirkubuz's third film The Third Page (Üçüncü Sayfa, 1999) was shown at many international film festivals, including Locarno and Rotterdam, in addition to those in Turkey. His films Fate (Yazgı, 2001) and The Confession (Itiraf, 2001), were both screened as part of the 2002 Cannes Film Festival's “Un Certain Regard” section, marking the first time that two films by a single Turkish director were included in the Cannes Film Festival the same year. Following The Waiting Room (Bekleme Odası, 2003), in which he took on the lead role, Demirkubuz filmed Destiny (Kader, 2006), a film that depicted the origin story of Innocence (Masumiyet), followed by Envy (Kıskanmak, 2009) and Inside (Yeraltı, 2012). Demirkubuz's latest film Inside (Yeraltı) received the Best Director, Best Actor, Best Editing, and Radikal People's Choice Award at the 31st Istanbul Film Festival.

The National Competition Jury chaired by Zeki Demirkubuz will award prizes in 9 categories: Golden Tulip Best Film, Golden Tulip Best Director, Special Jury Award, Best Actress, Best Actor, Best Screenplay, Best Director of Photography, Best Editing, and Best Music. Best Film selected by the National Competition Jury will be awarded with 150.000 TL, Best Director with 50.000 TL. The producer of the second best film in the National Competition will be awarded with the Special Jury Prize in memory of Onat Kutlar and 60.000 TL given by Anadolu Efes. The prizes for Best Actress and Best Actor will be 10.000 TL each.

National Documentary Competition

The 34th Istanbul Festival will be awarding a prize in the documentary category in the Turkish Cinema section for the first time. The Istanbul Film Festival, which has shown great interest in documentary film production in Turkey for many years, will be awarding a Best Documentary and Special Jury Prize under this heading, in order to support documentary film-makers and documentary film production in Turkey. The Documentary Competition Jury, assembled for the first time this year, will be awarding a total of 15.000 TL with the support of Anadolu Efes, in the categories of Best Documentary and the Special Jury Prize.

Seyfi Teoman Best Debut Film Prize

The Istanbul Film Festival presents for the third time this year, the Seyfi Teoman Best Debut Film Prize in memoriam director and producer Seyfi Teoman, who passed away at a young age. Director of the film awarded with the Best Debut Film Prize will be presented 30,000 TL bestowed by Cem Yılmaz via CMYLMZ Fikirsanat. All the debut fiction films from Turkey in the International and National Golden Tulip Competitions, “Out of Competition” and “New Turkish Cinema” sections under the “Turkish Cinema” section as well as the films in the “Human Rights in Cinema” section will be eligible for the prize.

The programme of the 34th Istanbul Film Festival will be announced on Tuesday, 10 March 2015.

For the international media accreditation to the festival: http://film.iksv.org/en/press/accreditation