The award ceremony of the “İzmir International Mediterranean Cinemas Meeting”, organized for the second time this year by the Izmir Metropolitan Municipality, was held at the Ahmed Adnan Saygun Art Center last night. At the ceremony, the MEDCINE İZMİR Langlois award, named in honor of Henri Langlois, the founder of French Cinematheque, was given to Tunisian writer and director Férid Boughedir. The festival comes to an end after the screenings to be held today.
The award ceremony of the “İzmir International Mediterranean Cinemas Meeting”, organized for the second time this year by the Izmir Metropolitan Municipality, was held at the Ahmed Adnan Saygun Art Center last night. The MEDCINE IZMIR Langlois award, named in honor of Henri Langlois from Izmir, the founder of the French Cinematheque, was given to Tunisian writer and director Férid Boughedir, whose films “Child of the Roofs” and “Zizou and the Arab Spring” were screened at the festival. The award was presented by Erden Kıral's actor Vildan Atasever in the movie “Night”, a special section dedicated to his memory this year. In his speech, Atasever said, “Erden Kıral was my teacher; I learned a lot from him. He wanted to work with me on his last film; I was not lucky. We were together on the jury of the Sadri Alışık Acting Awards, of which he was the chairman… It is a great loss for our cinema.” He gave an emotional speech.
Férid Boughedir is the Mayor of Izmir Metropolitan Municipality. Tunç Soyer and festival director Vecdi Sayar, saying, “I accept Henri Langlois as my father. In my youth, when I lived in a suburb of Paris, I used to jump on the train every weekend to Paris, to the French Cinematheque. Langlois struggled throughout her life to preserve the memory of cinema. It was Langlois who directed me to books and documentaries on the history of cinema, especially the history of Arab Cinema. When my documentary on 'Arab Cinema' was among the masters of cinema in the 'Cannes Classics' episode, I felt old because all the masters whose films were shown in this episode were dead. This important award given to me by İzmir made me feel young again.” Afterwards, the Salut de Smyrne group gave a concert of songs in different languages of the Mediterranean under the title “Songs from Izmir to the Mediterranean”.
Festival ends today
The Izmir International Mediterranean Cinemas Meeting, which started on November 7, will end with today's film screenings. On today's show, the Maltese film “Blood on the Crown”, “France” screened at the last Cannes Festival, starring Javier Bardem and nominated for Best European Comedy at the European Film Awards this year, at the Goya Awards and the Iberoamerican Cinema Platinum Awards. “The Best Boss”, the Spanish film that won the Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Actor awards; Palestine's Oscar nominee for the Best International Feature Film "Mediterranean Fire", and Sweden's Oscar nominee "Child From Heaven" by Egyptian director Tariq Saleh. The films are screened at the French Cultural Center and the Izmir Chamber of Architects.
30 feature films from 34 countries were screened
Films from Spain, France, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Greece from the north of the Mediterranean, Malta, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, Syria, Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco from the south of the Mediterranean participated in the festival program at the Izmir International Mediterranean Cinemas Meeting. 30 feature films from 34 countries were screened together with the producer countries. Among them were 2023 films nominated by their countries for the Best International Film category at the 6 Oscars.
The poster of the festival, organized by the different units of the Izmir Metropolitan Municipality (Divisions of Foreign Relations, Tourism and Culture and Art), İZELMAN and the Intercultural Art Association, with the support of the Izmir Chamber of Architects, the French Cultural Center and the Izmir Italian Consulate, bears the signature of Gürbüz Doğan Ekşioğlu. Within the scope of the festival, a two-day roundtable meeting was held at the İZDOĞA center with guest directors and producers, directors and producers whose films were screened at the festival, and representatives of professional organizations. At the meeting, co-production opportunities among Mediterranean cinemas were evaluated and concrete suggestions were put forward. Filmmakers exchanged views on various methods for making a Mediterranean film under the leadership of the Izmir Metropolitan Municipality.
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