People of Izmir Loved the Cinema at Sea

Organized by Izmir Metropolitan Municipality, “1. Izmir International Mediterranean Cinemas Meeting” ended yesterday. The people of Izmir were particularly interested in the film screenings on the Kadifekale floating platform.

Izmir Metropolitan Municipality held the “8. İzmir International Mediterranean Cinemas Meeting” ended. In addition to the film screenings held at the French Cultural Center, Karaca Cinema and the Kadifekale floating platform at Göztepe pier, a two-day meeting was held at the Swiss Hotel-Buyuk Efes. Representatives of cinema institutions, festival directors, producers and directors from Tunisia, Morocco, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Slovenia, Croatia, Italy and France, including Reis Çelik, Leyla Yılmaz and Leyla Yılmaz, who won important awards in our country and abroad last year. Filmmakers, including Fikret Reyhan, participated.

From Les Misérables to the Lebanese Skies

In the screening program of the 2019-2021 films, Greek director Christos Nikou's "Apples", Algerian-French director Maiwenn's "DNA", Palestinian director Amin Nayfeh's "200 Meters", Moroccan director Alaaddin Aljem's "Unknown" Aziz”, Malian-French director Ladj Ly’s “Les Miserables”, Palestinian director Elia Suleiman's “This Must Be Heaven”, Spanish director Alejandro Amenabar's “In the Shadow of War”, French director Robert Guédiguian's “Gloria Mundi”, Tunisian “The Man Who Sells His Skin” by director Kouther Ben Hania, “Papicha” by Algerian-French director Mouina Meddour, “The Synonyms” by Israeli director Nadav Lapid, “Lebanon Skies” by French director Chloé Mazlo, Algerian director Merzak Alllouache In addition to the "Family" films of Turkey, Fikret Reyhan's "Catlak" and Leyla Yılmaz's "Don't Know" films took place. Reyhan and Yılmaz answered the questions of the audience at the French Cultural Center after the screenings. Palestinian director Amin Nayfeh also had an interview with festival director Vecdi Sayar on board the Kadifekale ship at the opening night. The people of Izmir were particularly interested in the film screenings at the Kadifekale floating facility.

“İzmir can play a leading role”

The participants of the “1st İzmir International Meeting of Mediterranean Cinemas” stated that due to its location, İzmir can play a leading role in the formation of the Mediterranean Cinemas network, that Arab cinemas in the south of the Mediterranean and cinemas of Southern European countries can collaborate with a center to be established in Ġzmir. They emphasized that the Mediterranean Cinema Awards could be created as a resemblance of the Awards and said goodbye to meet again in İzmir next year.

Langlois award to Allouache

Deciding to give an award to one cinema person every year as part of the Mediterranean Cinemas Meeting, the Metropolitan decided to name the award after the founder of the French Cinematheque, Henri Langlois, born in Izmir, and to give the first year's award to Merzak Allouache, one of the masters of Algerian cinema. However, a few days before the start of the festival, Allouache caught COVID and could not come to İzmir. The statuette designed by the Izmir sculptor Tonguç Sevcan will be presented to Allouache at the next year's meeting.