Movie time
SCREENINGS from a top Turkish film festival will take place in North Cyprus throughout the year, it has been announced.
Films from the 17th !f İstanbul International Independent Film Festival will be shown in the TRNC, along with 50 other locations in 33 cities around Turkey and neighbouring countries, starting this month and continuing until December.
The first films will be shown at Studio 21 on Uray Sokak in Lefkoşa’s walled city on Saturday, February 24.
The screenings of the Turkish short animation Kötü Kız (Wicked Girl), directed by Ayce Kartal, and the Iranian film Ava, directed and written by Sadaf Foroughi, will begin at 1pm. Ava was awarded the “Discovery” category prize by the International Federation of Film Critics (Fipresci) at the Toronto International Film Festival last September.
It features the life of a high school student in Iran who rebels against her parents and her “tightly controlled environment” with “life-altering” effects.
At 4pm, the award-winning Turkish documentary Confrontation, directed by Nejla Demirci, will be shown, telling the stories of women with breast cancer.
On Sunday, February 25, film buffs will have the opportunity to watch two more films at the same venue starting at 11am — Dans Eden Kızlar (Dancing Girls), directed by Zeynep Köprülü, which tells the life and friendship of two young women, and Jane, a biographical documentary about chimpanzee expert Jane Goodall. Entry to all five films is free. The !f films, which reach an audience of over 15,000, are being brought to North Cyprus for the ninth time this year in a collaboration between cultural and arts centre Sidestreets, Studio 21 and the Hoi Polloi bar-café, all based in Lefkoşa’s old city.
Details and dates of other screenings, expected to be on the last weekend of each month, will be announced at a later date, organisers said.