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, from Turkey, made their first international presentations. 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.
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 at the Cezayir Restaurant on the night of 16 April, Thursday.
The Award Ceremony opened with speeches by Istanbul Film Festival Director Azize Tan and Head of Meetings on the Bridge Gülin Üstün.
Winners of the Film Development Workshop
The selection committee selected 10 projects out of the 120 applications for the Film Project Development Workshop held for the 8th time within the scope of the Meetings on the Bridge.
•Anons / The Announcement (Mahmut Fazıl Coşkun)
•Av / The Hunt(Emre Akay)
•Bir Baba ve Oğulun Ölümü / The Death of Father and Son(Zekeriya Aydoğan)
•Çarpık Ev / The Crooked House(Sinem Sakaoğlu)
•Hafiye / The Detective (Mehmet Sait Korkut)
•Hayatı Beklerken / Waiting for Life(Ayşe Toprak)
•Herşey O.K / Everything’s O.K(Theron Patterson)
•Iguana Tokyo (Kaan Müjdeci)
•Nebula / Dead Horse Nebula(Tarık Aktaş)
•Yanlama / Ghetto Drifters (Dağhan Celayir)
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 10,000 Euro 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
5 films were selected for the Work in Progress Workshop in its 5th edition within the scope of the Meetings on the Bridge, which aims to support feature films and documentaries in their post-production stage.
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 festival announced that the film screenings would continue, but the National and International Golden Tulip Competitions, National Documentary Competition and the Closing Ceremony were cancelled.
Following these incidents, 3 of the 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.
Turkish-German Co-Production Development Fund
The projects to be supported by the Turkish-German Co-Production Development Fund were also announced at the ceremony. Granted for the fifth time, this fund, formed by collaboration of Istanbul Film Festival Meetings on the Bridge, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, and Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein Film Fund, with the support of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Turkey, aims to provide an incentive fund for the co-productions by the two countries.
Out of the 10 projects that applied, 7 of them were chosen unanimously by the jury that comprises the representatives of the collaborating institutions.
The projects to be supported by the Turkish-German Co-Production Development Fund are as follows:
Mehmet Can Mertoğlu – Albüm / Album – 30.000 AVRO
Co-producers: Yoel Meranda- Kamara Film (TR), Alexander Ris- Neue Mediopolis Filmproduktion (DE)
Hüseyin Karabey- Hamarat Apartmanı / Hamarat Apartment- 20.000 AVRO
Co-producers: Hüseyin Karabey- Asi Film (TR), Alexander Ris- Neue Mediopolis Filmproduktion (DE)
Nefin Dinç – Antoine Köpe’nin Hatıraları / The Memoirs of Antoine Köpe – 20.000 AVRO
Co-producers: Gamze Paker – Atlantik Film (TR), Titus Kreyenberg- Una Film (DE)
Melisa Önel – 16 – 10.000 AVRO
Co-producers: İpek Kent- Yedi Film (TR), Ufuk Genç- Cine Chromatix (DE)
Çayan Demirel – Kardeş Türküler / Songs of Fraternity – 10.000 AVRO
Co-producers: Ayşe Çetinbaş- Surela Film (TR), Zülfiye Akkulak- Newa Film (DE)
Erol Mintaş – Kargalar / Crows – 15.000 AVRO
Co-producers: Erol Mintaş- Mintaş Film (TR), Verena Graefe-Hoet (DE)
M. Cem Öztüfekçi – Boş Zamanlar / Idle Moments – 10.000 AVRO
Co-producers: Annamaria Aslanoğlu- İstos Film (TR), Titus Kreyenberg- Una Film (DE)
Neighbours Project
The Meetings on the Bridge launched a new project in its 10th edition, the Neighbours with a view to inviting film projects from the neighbouring countries. This project aims to increase cultural interaction and enhance dialogue with our neighbours and encourage new collaborations in co-productions in order for creators of same or similar cultural backgrounds to work together. The filmmakers of the chosen projects had nearly 80 meetings with international film professionals during the course of the workshops. The 3 projects that participated in the Neighbours section of the Meetings on the Bridge are as follows.
• Forgiveness (director Sadaf Foroughi, producer Majid Barzegar) - Iran
• Manji (director Tinatin Kajrishvili, producer Lasha Khalvashi) - Georgia
• Radiogram (director Rouzie Hassanova, producer Gergana Stankova) - Bulgaria
Panels and Master Classes
The 11 panels and master classes that were held for free on 5-16 April within the scope of the Meetings on the Bridge attracted great attention from filmmakers.
In the lecture, “Different Approaches To Show Reality In Documentaries” Arash T. Riahi, one of the directors and producers of the film Everyday Rebellion, informed the audience on approaches and various sub-genres in documentaries.
Reha Erdem met with the attendees for a master class after the screening of Kosmos.
In the lecture “Editing Shaped by Human Perception”, experienced editor Çiçek Kahraman talked about the nature of editing and its contribution to the perspectives in films, based on the films she had edited.
In the panel “Creative Europe”, moderated by the producer of The Impeccables Emine Yıldırım, Kamen Balkanski, the Director of the Bulgarian Creative Europe Desk, and Hale Ural, the Coordinator of Creative Europe Desk Turkey, shared detailed information about media applications.
After the screening of the documentary Remake Remix Rip-off, which is on popular adaptations in Yeşilçam movies and copy-culture, the film’s director Cem Kaya and Kunt Tulgar, director of many popular adventure movies in Yeşilçam, together with director-producer Ali Yorgancıoğlu, founding partner of Dirty Cheap Creative, gave a lecture on making films on low-budgets.
In the lecture “Did I Forget Something? Marketing!” Christina Pelekani and Tuğçe Taçkın first talked about the conventional and alternative marketing models in the world and then discussed the marketing preferences in Turkey.
Moderator Tuğçe Taçkın hosted Shani Geva from Archer Gray, Merrill Sterritt from Film Presence, and Filmbox executive and SPI International’s Turkey Representative Güney Yasavur as speakers in the panel “New Trends On Distribution, Audience Engagement And Funding”. The speakers discussed online funding, building audiences, and alternative screening channels.
In the panels, “Meet the Markets and Training Programs” and “Meet the Funds”, which were both held for the first time this year, managers of world’s leading markets and funds, such as Berlinale, Cinéfondation, EAVE, Film Centre Serbia, Eurimages, and City of Sarajevo, informed the participants on the application processes for their funds and answered the questions.
Script consultant Anita Voorham and sector consultant and Meetings on the Bridge Advisor Tobias Pausinger gave a lecture on scriptwriting stage and the writing process, discussing the different methods of work and sharing useful tips.
The master classes at the Meetings on the Bridge culminated with the lecture “Current and Future Challenges in Film Producing” by Israel Film Fund Manager Katriel Schory. Schory talked about teamwork, fund developing, and the world of co-production.
Bringing together producers, directors, scriptwriters, and institutional representatives from Turkey and Europe, the Meetings on the Bridge provides feature projects and films at the post-production stage in Turkey opportunities to receive their first international presentations. The Meetings on the Bridge, an international platform where filmmakers can present their projects and find the support required to start the production process, will continue to bring the international representatives of the sector together with filmmakers from Turkey, within the scope of the Istanbul Film Festival in its next edition.
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