!f istanbul starts soon (11-21 Feb)

Independent film festival !f istanbul’s 2010 session will take place btw 11-21 February. Two Fbook groups for the festival: !f istanbul and !f istanbul 2010 film önerileri.

Official website: !f istanbul 2010

Independent films coming to !f in Istanbul and Ankara – Hurriyet Daily News and Economic Review

!f İstanbul festival announces glittering bill for ninth edition
Today’s Zaman
Countdown to this year’s !f Istanbul AFM International Independent Film Festival, the 10-day indie extravaganza eagerly anticipated each year for its

İstanbul fest to launch best first films program
Today’s Zaman
The İstanbul International Film Festival will this year introduce a new program that focuses on first films through a joint effort with Turkish film critics

The Quote of the Week: Censorship in Turkish Cinema

by Changing Turkey

Excerpt from Kevin Robins and Asu Aksoy (2000) “Deep Nation: The National Question and Turkish Cinema Culture”, in Cinema and Nation edited by Mette Hjort and Scott Mackenzie, Routledge, London, New York, Chapter 13.

Burton to head Cannes film jury

from BBC News | Europe | World Edition

US filmmaker Tim Burton says that being asked to head the jury at this year’s Cannes Film Festival is a “great honour”.

Dabbe 2 at no. 1 in the worst 10 Turkish movies of the last year here.

In Memoriam | Zeki Ökten

from Turkish Cinema Newsletter by M.A.M

Why Che?

from The Criterion Current

img che 1328 034 !f istanbul starts soon (11 21 Feb)

Steven Soderbergh’s Che depicts the two military campaigns that defined the rise and fall of Ernesto “Che” Guevara, hero of the Cuban Revolution, who became in death a global icon of militant leftism—and of inchoate adolescent rebellion. As the latter, he has been, ironically, a capitalist windfall—the face that launched a trillion posters and T-shirts. Soderbergh’s movie is neither a traditional biopic nor an analysis of Che as the brand that never goes out of style. Rather, it is a detailed representation of guerrilla warfare, shot in a manner that is as close to guerrilla filmmaking as a roughly $60 million production can get. While $60 million may seem like a great deal of money, it’s chump change compared with the average price of studio action pictures, especially since Che is actually two feature-length films, shot on location with thirty-nine days allotted for each, and both with large casts of characters.