Istanbul International Film Festival
The Istanbul International Film Festival, organized by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts, was first realized in the Summer of 1982, within the frame of the International Istanbul Festival as a “Film Week” of six films. The theme of the films participating in the Festival was limited to “Arts and the Movies”, to keep the event within the context of the International Istanbul Festival. In 1983 the event was realized under the title of “Istanbul Filmdays”, faking place throughout the Festival. That year 36 films were presented to the film lovers within a span of a month.
Beginning from 1984, the event gained an identity as a separate activity; it was shifted to the month of April and 44 films from 16 countries were screened. In 1985, two competitive sections, one being national and the other international, were included in the festival program. The International Competition section of the program consisted of films having the theme of “arts and artists” which were evaluated by an international jury, and the best film received Ihe “Golden Tulip Award”. As for the National Competition, a national jury evaluated the participating Turkish films and chose the film to receive “Eczacibasi Foundation the Best Fi I`m of the Year Award”.
The Festival, which showed a steady growth from the days of its establishment, aimed “to encourage the development of cinema in Turkey, to help Turkish Cinema to attain international recognition and to promote the films of quality in the Turkish market”. In the following years, The Istanbul International Filmdays firmly established its position by screening 69 feature films in 1985,78 in 1986, 103 in 1987, 114 in 1988 and took its place among the major film festivals of the world not only with the great number of Films shown but also with the quality and the versatility of Its program.
At the beginning of 1989 the event was recognized as “a competitive specialized festival” by FLAPF (International Federation of Film Producers Associations) and was accredited as one of the eminent film festivals of the world. Parallel to this development, “Istanbul Filmdays” was renamed as “Istanbul International Film Festival”.
Since 1996 to the present day large number of world famous cinema professional’s, artists and actors internationally and j locally awarded with “Lifetime Success” and “Honor of Cinema” awards these names such as Robert Wise, Lutfi Akad, Turkan Soray, Gillo Pontecorvo, Michelangelo Antonioni, Claude Sautet, Elia Kazan, Peter Greenaway, Istvan Szabo, Erol TaS, Suna Pekuysal, Zeki Okten, Omer Kavur, Bertrand Blier, Jerry Schatzberg, Abbas Kiarostami, Carlos Saura, Ken Russell, Nanni Moretti, Stephen Frears, Otar Iosseliani, Taviani Brothers and Bertrand Tavernier, Theo Angelopoulos
Over the past 24 years 3.276 films joined to the festival from 176 countries around the world and those films been shown to the audience of more than 3 million people 26th Istanbul Film Festival 31 March – 15 April 2007
