Today’s Zaman, Turkey
Oct 25 2009

The 46th Antalya Golden Orange festival: a personal retrospective

Festival goers walk by a poster honoring Turkish actors in front of
the Antalya Culture Center, where the 46th Antalya Altın Portakal
International Film Festival galas were held.

Starved of the lavish funding of recent years, organizers of Antalya’s
prestigious Altın Portakal (Golden Orange) International Film Festival
made a virtue out of necessity, proclaiming this year’s stripped-down
event a `people’s festival.’

Locals were able to take part in free cinema workshops and
competitions, ticket prices were slashed and the number of venues
screening films increased. But could we, Antalya residents, grown
accustomed of late to sipping a pre-screening glass of wine alongside
major international stars such as Francis Ford Coppola and Kevin
Spacey, accept the more mundane prospect of downing a pre-film freebie
cup of instant coffee and hoping for a glimpse of an up-and-coming
`home-grown’ director?
Sunday, Oct. 11: The Laura Center. Previous festivals featured a
glossily produced program the size of an encyclopedia, giving a handy
synopsis of every film. Year 2009’s budget pamphlet listed only the
film name, director and venue, which led to a frenzied Google-search
for relevant reviews. `Tandoori Love,’ telling of a love affair
between an Indian chef, working on a Switzerland-set Bollywood film,
and a local alpine-blonde beauty, was described as `the funniest film
to have come out of Switzerland for years.’ I should have known better
(the Swiss are noted for efficiency, not humor), and it fell flat on
its face, right between the two stools where its director had
unwittingly placed it. Ang Lee’s `Taking Woodstock’ was a blessed
relief, an affectionate, amusing tribute to the almost accidental way
the greatest popular music festival in history came about.

Monday, Oct. 12: Antalya Culture Center (AKM). The foyer of the
festival’s premier venue was humming for the gala screening of Murat
SaraçoÄ?lu’s `Deli Deli Olma’ (Piano Girl), a comic drama set in a
snowy village outside distant Kars. The village’s last Molakan (a
little-known ethnic group expelled from Russia by the tsar after the
1877-78 Russo-Ottoman war) befriends a local girl and encourages her
latent musical talent, with the help of the Molakan’s ancient piano.
Entertaining if melodramatic, the rapt audience gave it a standing
ovation.

Tuesday, Oct. 13: AKM. Justifiably `Ä°ki Dil Bir Bavul’ (On the Way to
School), a documentary by Ã-zgür DoÄ?an and Orhan Eskiköy, would go on
to win the festival’s best first film award. Newly qualified teacher
Emre is sent from the prosperous western Turkish town of Denizli to a
dirt poor, ethnically Kurdish village set on an unimaginably bleak,
basalt-covered plateau outside Å?anlıurfa. He doesn’t speak Kurdish,
the kids no Turkish. The camera catches the absurdities (Emre gelling
his hair in the morning as if he’s heading out for a night on the
town) and realities (kids made to stand on one leg for speaking
Kurdish in class) of the situation. The powerful, dialogue-free
`Border’ by Armenian director Harutyun Khachatryan mixes documentary
and staged scenes to great effect. A water buffalo, filched by
Armenian villagers from the Azerbaijani side of the frontier, is used,
in the director’s own words, `to show the reality and wish to get rid
of borders — emotional, moral, psychological.’ The emblematic buffalo
tries, repeatedly, to escape his `captors’ but is prevented from
returning `home’ by the razor-wire border fence.

Thursday, Oct. 15: Laura Center. `Uzak Ä°htimal’ (Wrong Rosary). This
gentle, understated film was shot in the atmospheric backstreets of
Ä°stanbul’s Galata district by Mahmut Fazıl CoÅ?kun. An earnest muezzin,
Musa, becomes infatuated with his pretty neighbor, Clara, a Christian.
Bumping into her outside their apartment, Musa accidentally picks up
her rosary beads instead of his own prayer beads. He only realizes his
mistake whilst fingering the beads in his mosque and one of the
congregation tactfully points out the crucifix attached to them. The
scene drew gales of laughter from the audience, but at the end there
was nearly a fight between an angry young man and some equally irate
viewers who had been chiding him throughout the film for using his
mobile phone.

Friday, Oct. 16: AKM. What started out as another sell-out finished
with the plush auditorium half empty. `Aya Seyahat’ (Journey to the
Moon) by KutluÄ? Ataman did for a remote 1950s Turkish village what
`Spinal Tap’ did for heavy metal — that is, lovingly poked fun at it
through the device of a mock documentary. A clever piece of
filmmaking, it splices stunning black and white stills recounting the
villagers’ attempts to do their bit in the Cold War `space race’ and
fly to the moon in the minaret of the local mosque, with interviews
with an ensemble of Turkish academics musing on their country cousins’
antics. Did the viewers who walked out do so because they felt their
intelligence or their nation was being insulted, or simply through
incomprehension? Whatever the reason, it was insulting to both the
director and the remaining audience — who gave this intelligent and
witty film the generous applause it deserved.

Saving the best for last, it was back to Migros for `Min Dit’ (The
Children of Diyarbakır), director Miraz Bezar’s debut feature, backed
by successful Turkish-German director Fatih Akın. Orphaned by the
murder of their parents by Nuri, a JÄ°TEM (a clandestine intelligence
organization formed within the gendarmerie) assassin, 10-year-old
Gülistan and her sibling Fırat (beautifully played by real-life street
kids) end up on the mean streets of the impoverished southeastern city
of Diyarbakır. Just back from one of several visits over the years to
that city, I know how accurately the film depicts the street urchins’
plight. A brave debut, and courageous of the festival organizers to
screen a Kurdish language film where the villain of the piece is a
member of the Turkish security forces.

Golden Orange No. 46 may have been more austere than we have become
accustomed to, and the unusually overcast skies gave the festival a
somber atmosphere. But the films I saw (with one exception) ranged
between the good and the superb (and remember, `On the Way to School’
apart, I didn’t even catch the award-winning entries), with many
screenings sold out. A great festival in keeping with 2009’s pinched
economy. Here’s hoping for an even better 47th.

25 October 2009, Sunday

TERRY RICHARDSON ANTALYA