Final film selections competing in both the National and International Film Categories were announced by the Film Selection Committee. This year 16 Turkish feature films will compete in the National Film Competition alongside 25 documentaries and 16 short feature films. In addition, 12 foreign films from Europe and Asia will be competing in the International Film competition.
Foreign Films entered in this year's 46th International Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival will compete for the Golden Orange award for Best Film, Best Director and Best Actor.
The International Antalya Golden Orange Film Competition will include the following:
"EASTERN PLAYS", Directed by KAMEN KALEV,
Bulgaria and Sweden co-production, 2009
A debut feature from Bulgaria' Kamen Kalev portraying a young man's struggle following years of drug addiction. Eastern Plays is not just a story of recovery but a family that is torn apart by the unpleasant world of neo-Nazism and racist violence in Sofia.
The drama focuses initially on Christo‘s younger brother, the shaven-headed Georgi (Ovanes Torosian), who escapes his miserable home life with his domineering father and stepmother by hanging out with a group of skinheads and neo-Nazis in heavy metal bars. Tragically, the lead actor Christo Christov, a childhood friend of Kalev's whom he cast essentially to play himself, died in an accident a few days after shooting ended.
"EASTERN STRAWBERRIES" "ANGLİCKE JAHODY" Directed by VLADIMIR DRHA
A Czech Republic, Slovakian and Ukrainian 2008 production
A drama centered on a Russian soldier who wants to defect to the West and a young Czech whose dreams of going to England to pick strawberries for the summer are dashed when Soviet tanks converge on Prague in August 1968.
"BUMAZNYI SOLDAT - PAPER SOLDIER" Directed by ALEXEY GERMAN JR.
Russian, 2008
The period film, set in 1961, harkens back to Russian cinema of the '60s. Paper Soldier deals with the early days of the Soviet space program (post-Sputnik, pre-manned flight) and is structured in the form of a countdown. The film ticks of the six weeks leading to Gagarin's epoch-making first flight, and dealing particularly with the cosmonaut selection process. The film focuses on the character of Dr. Daniel Pokrovsky, an overwrought doctor with a weak heart and a complicated romantic life. In addition to winning the Silver Lion and Best Cinematography at last year's Venice International Film Festival, the film stars the mesmerizing Georgian actor Merab Ninidze as a doctor whose conscience insidiously catches up with him as he works with the young cosmonauts at the Soviet Cosmodrome Baikonur.
SAHMAN - BORDER". Directed by HARUTYUN KHACHATRYAN
Co-Written by Harutyun Khachhatryan and Mikayel Stamboltsyan,
Armenia and the Netherlands 2009
"SAHMAN-BORDER" takes place in the post-soviet period, after the Armenian-Azeri conflict at a time when a huge empire was being ruined and different conflicts raised between nations. The film tells about a village situated near the conflict zone, where the benefactor of Armenian descent from America opened a charitable canteen and a nearby farm where refugees from different places worked.
"11'E 10 KALA" , Directed by PELİN ESMER
Turkey, 2009
Turkish filmmaker Pelin Esmer's award-winning debut fictional feature starring Mithat Esmerand Nejat Isler, follows the story of an old antiques collector who resides in an old apartment building that has to be demolished and rebuilt to bring it up to code with earthquake regulations. "11'e 10 KALA" received the Jury's Award at this year's Istanbul Film Festival and award for Best Film and Screenplay at the Adana Golden Koza Film Festival.
"KATALIN VARGA", directed by PETER STRICKLAND
Romania, United Kingdom and Hungary 2009
A rural tragedy with an undertow of film noir, Katalin Varga is a woman-on-a-mission story about how violence breeds violence. With an intriguingly old-fashioned feel, this resembles a Romanian film of a bygone era but it is the debut feature of expat British director Peter Strickland. Katalin Varga has already received the Silver Bear at the 59th Berlin International Film Festival and New Talent Award at the Copenhagen International Film Festival.
"SICAK - BLISS", directed by ABDULLAH OĞUZ
Turkey, 2009
One of the first narrative Turkish films to tackle the highly charged subject of honor killings is based on the internationally acclaimed novel by renowned Turkish author O. Z. Livaneli and set against the backdrop of Turkey's natural wonders. Bliss is an unconventional road movie that pits tradition against modernity, urban against rural and East against West, all the while refusing to settle for easy answers. When 17-year-old Meryem is found disheveled and unconscious by the side of a lake in the countryside, her family believes the worst - that her chastity has been lost. They turn to the ancient principle of "tore," a strict moral code that condemns Meryem to death. The duty of upholding the family's honor falls upon a distant cousin, Cemal, who has just completed a brutal tour in the military. Together they embark on a surprising journey across traditional and modern-day Turkey.
"À L'EST DE MOİ - EAST OF ME", directed by BOJENA HORACKOVA
France 2008
"East of Me" follows a young woman who is heading for Moscow by train. As she crosses former Eastern block countries, she talks to people she encounters at railway stations and in the snow-decked countryside. Fragments of her past begin to rise to the surface.
"AMBULANCE", directed by GORAN RADOVANOVİC
Serbia, 2009
The Ambulance is a contemporary historical film reflecting the drama of the profound social changes that the Serbian society underwent at the turn of this century. The story - spanning from the collapse of the last European totalitarianism in 2000 to the current queuing of this fragile Balkan democracy in the lobby of the European Union seven years later, is delivered through an account of the development of the local ambulance service. Adhering to the spirit of modern neo-realism, this evolution is illustrated by three stories set in three different periods linked by mutually connected and conditioned.
"GAGMA NAPİRİ - THE OTHER BANK", Directed by GEORGI OVASHVILI
Georgia and Kazakhstan, 2008
"The Other Bank" narrates the poignant story of a 12-year-old boy (Tedo Bekhauri), who journeys alone and penniless across the expanse of Georgia to reach the Abkhazian border in a futile search to find his father. He witnesses rape, robbery, poverty, and death as the ongoing ethnic conflict between Georgians and Abkhazians surfaces at every turn in the road.
"OPERATION DANUBE "OPERACJA DUNAI", directed by JACEK GLOMB
Polish and Czech Republic, 2009
Operation Danube was the cover name for the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact armies in August 1968. The fleet of Polish tanks which arrive to liberate their neighbor, ostensibly threatened by a counter-revolution, includes the old tank nicknamed "Ladybird", which is the last to leave the barracks. It gets hopelessly lost and conks out at daybreak in a small Czech border town in the middle of nowhere. Its inhabitants are quick to show their antipathy towards the occupiers. However, when both sides realize they are essentially victims of the situation and that they are capable of reaching a gentlemen's agreement, all kinds of relationships begin to blossom.
"TUTA COLPA DI GUIDA - FREEDOM" directed by DAVID FERRARIO
Italy , 2009
Young avantgarde theatre director Irena Mirković accepts a proposal put forward by prison chaplain Don Iridio to attempt to stage an Easter Passion play with inmates of the local detention centre unaware that this experience will change her entire life. While she gains the confidence of the inmates, she finds out that no-one is willing to accept the part of Judas - given their circumstances, for reasons that are quite obvious. So the young woman is forced to find an alternative solution, which she does, in an original but considerably non-conformist adaptation of the biblical text. Davide Ferrario shot his musical comedy in a penitentiary in Turin and most of the characters are played by real prisoners.
For more information:
Nil Bilal
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+90 533 431 30 78
Esin Tatlav
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0212 256 49 91
0532 307 80 39
Ece Özden
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0532 587 85 55
