Turkish Film Community, Shattered by Earthquake, Says It Needs Greater International Solidarity
variety.comBerlin Film Festival. At least not according to the co-chiefs of Turkey’s Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival. “The festival’s opening ceremony started with Ukraine, ended with Ukraine and touched on Iran.
But I don’t think they ever mentioned Turkey,” said Ahmet Boyacıoğlu, president of the fest that has historically always been the country’s prime local cinema catalyst.
The Berlinale points out that its invitation to the opening ceremony had a written appeal to make donations for the Turkish earthquake relief effort to the humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders. “While I’m here, if a meeting doesn’t start with mention of the earthquake, I feel particularly depressed.
And unfortunately that is happening,” noted Antalya’s artistic director, Başak Emre. “And also in social media we are not feeling support.” Not that they feel that the Turkish film community was getting lots of love from the Berlinale, and other European film festivals, even before the quake that has killed more than 43,000 people, at the latest count, and left tens of thousands homeless. “To be honest, Europe is just not very interested in Turkey at the moment.
Read more on variety.com