Organized by the Ankara Cinema Association with the support of the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the Festival on Wheels is gearing up to host film enthusiasts at its 19th edition, which runs from 27th November to 9th December 2013.

The Festival will start out in Edremit on 27th November, before moving on to Ankara for more screenings between 29th November-5th December and travelling finally to Sinop from 6th-9th December.

Screenings in Ankara will take place at the Kızılay Büyülü Fener Cinema, the Goethe Institut and the Contemporary Arts Centre.

Two Festival Openings: Edremit - Ankara

This year, the Festival on Wheels will hold openings first in Edremit and latterly in Ankara. A brief, one-day event will take place in Edremit to honour the memory of Tuncel Kurtiz, an unfailing friend of the Festival since it first took to the road. The day’s line-up will include screenings of Gül Hasan (Hasan the Rose), the dramatic feature Kurtiz directed in 1979, and a documentary entitled Tuncel Kurtiz: a Trusted Travel Companion of the Festival on Wheels. This newly made documentary is based on a compilation of archive material from the Festival on Wheels archive with contributions from close friends of the veteran filmmaker. There will also be further film screenings in the town throughout the day, staged with the support of the Municipality of Edremit.

The second opening of this year’s Festival on Wheels pays tribute to an important name in, and important period of film history. In its first ever screening in Ankara, Alfred Hitchcock’s silent film, Blackmail, will be presented with live music accompaniment at Ankara’s State Art and Sculpture Museum on the evening of 28th November in collaboration with the British Council. Blackmail is one of ten little known silent films Hitchcock made between 1925 and 1929; and the nine that survive have been painstakingly restored by the BFI (British Film Institute) in its recent ‘Hitchcock9’ project. This premiere performance, made possible by the British Council, will be accompanied by pianist, Hasan Ali Toker.

Continuing the Journey with Tuncel Kurtiz

Festival audiences will this year have the chance to see Gül Hasan (Hasan the Rose), an unconventional tale of Turkish immigrant workers in Europe which was directed by Tuncel Kurtiz in Sweden in 1979. Kurtiz, who co-wrote the script with Nuri Sezer, also stars in the lead. Another film to look out for in this section is the Shimon Dotan directed Israeli production, Hiuch Hagdi (The Smile of the Lamb), which earned Kurtiz a Silver Bear at Berlin for Best Actor in 1986.

Turkish Cinema

Turkey 2013, a selection of Turkish films made this year, promises once again to bring audiences the cast and director of featured titles at gala performances during the Festival. The programme for this section includes: Mahmut Fazıl Coşkun’s Yozgat Blues, Köksüz (Nobody’s Home) from Deniz Akçay Katıksız, Onur Ünlü’s Sen Aydınlatırsın Geceyi (Thou Gild’st the Even), Gözümün Nuru (Eye Am), co-directed by Hakkı Kurtuluş and Melik Saraçoğlu, and Ramin Matin’s Kusursuzlar (The Impeccables). Also in the line-up are two dramatic features screened at this year’s Berlin Film Festival, Reha Erdem’s Jîn and the Kars shot Soğuk (Cold) from Uğur Yücel. 

World Cinema

The Festival on Wheels will once more be bringing audiences a pick of the latest award-winning films from leading international festivals such as Berlin, Cannes and Sundance.

The bill includes Turkish premieres of The Great Beauty, Cutie and the Boxer, Workers, This is Martin Bonner and Nobody’s Daughter Haewon, as well as first screenings in Ankara of Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, The Past, Gloria and A World not ours.

New Beginnings

Within the World Cinema programme at this year’s Festival on Wheels are four films based on the premise of breaking with the past to make a fresh start in life. Gloria, Chile’s submission for Best Foreign Film at the upcoming Academy Awards, came back from Berlin 2013 with multiple awards including Best Actress. It tells the story of a woman full of zest for life as she battles with old age and loneliness. The film is directed by Sebastián Lelio, who Festival audiences will remember from last year with El Año del Tigre (The Year of the Tiger).

Paolo Sorrentino ranks among the latest generation of directors to have made their mark on Italian cinema, and his large-scale production, The Great Beauty, an impassioned portrait of modern-day Rome, is one of the most sumptuous pieces of cinema to emerge in recent times.