The festival opened on Friday, there was the exhibition opening cocktail party on Saturday and on Sunday there was the presentation I had to attend. After going around asking everyone what exactly I was supposed to do I learned, at the very last minute, that first I was to just say “there will be a question and answer session after the film with the films director and please join me in welcoming him blah blah” and after the film the audience members were to ask questions which I had to translate. If they failed to ask I would motivate by asking my own questions.
Basically this was a translation job and I have no idea why I was doing it. I mean it was not as if I was putting to use any of my knowledge as a film critic and scholar for it, except may be to the extent that I knew film terminology in both languages very well. The thing went smoothly.
I have translated three books in my life one fiction and two non-fiction and let me tell you that I hate translating. I find it the most tedious job in the world where you end up thinking on a sentence longer than its writer ever did and it is never worth the effort. However this kind of translation was very easy and I enjoyed it thoroughly. I must admit, especially when people referred to other directors or films, I thought someone who did not already know these names could never have been able to get what was going on let alone repeat the names, so maybe after all there is some small wisdom in making us do it, although admittedly we, film critics and scholars, are over qualified for this job.
The result: Provided there is some adequate monetary compensation, I wouldn’t mind doing all the presentations. Though I guess this would necessitate being at different places at the same time and why should the festival pay when they are getting us to do it for free? The real result: never again!
Of course I got to see my first festival film because of this presentation and this is good because if I don’t start early on I usually end up not going to any movie during the festival. I mean there was a time back in my youth when I went to four, even five, movies a day for two weeks straight. I did mention I was very fucked up in my youth, didn’t I? Well this was one of the symptoms, as far as I am concerned. But even then I had an excuse: I wrote what I saw, I was even writing a festival journal for a newspaper at one point. Plus, back then, the festival was the only opportunity to see some films. Whereas now, thanks to DVD and the downloading capabilities of the internet, there is no such animal. And yes my home theatre system beats most of the film theatres of the festival.
All of my fellow film critics still try to see as many films as possible during the festival and it seems so does the university youth (or a predictable portion of it). I knew back then, as I do now, that this is more about the allure of a social activity, ‘festivity’ actually, then the urge to see movies. And the ‘festive’ aspect holds less allure for me as time goes by. I have enough confidence to socialise with people without any pretext and am capable of organising private festivities to my own liking when I happen to get the urge. I cannot get a feeling of contentment by merely saying, “I have seen 25 films” like I used to. In fact given the unavoidable ratio: out of any 25 film 15, at least, will be crap; I would feel I have wasted precious time of my life in which I could have been doing something worthwhile. Let me not get carried away with the ‘getting old’ shit however.
The film was called “The Speed of Life” and I had chosen to present its director for 3 reasons: a) it was an American independent movie and this usually means a predictably nice little film about eccentric characters. b) American independent directors are usually people that are exactly like you and me, with whom you can have a decent conversation, even become friends with, as I have learned from my experience with Bill Morrison c) the film was shot using a myriad of formats ranging from high 8 to VHS d) the film had won the queer lion award at the Venice film festival. The last meant that the director might be gay but it turned out he wasn’t and actually it is quite a bit of a stretch to call this a queer film.
It was, however, a pleasant movie and I enjoyed it a lot. However, since it was shown in ‘digibeta format’, I would have watched it in way better conditions, if I had watched it at home. The director Ed Radtke turned out to be a very easy going and entertaining chap whom I am happy to have known, we went to grab a drink after the session and had a nice little chat. So, my belief that American independent directors are cool people, has been strengthened.
Posts Tagged ‘film
To pick up exactly where I left in my last entry:
First we got on the tram to Kabatas and took a taksi which let us out near ‘the open air theatre’ which in theory is sort of the back door of where we were thrying to reach since by claming a set of stairs you get there. However in practice the stairs were closed due to some sort of construction going on god knows what. Istanbul is a city of perpetual construction especially pavements and roads keep being constructed all over again (it is NOT maintenance it is destructing the whole thing and rebuilding from scratch every year) which meant, with a great many people who thought they were being street wise by taking the back door, we had to walk the entire bloc to reach the front entrance, thank god I don’t wear high heels like many of our fellow commuters had done.
Anyway the press with their cameras were lining the entrance and we made a dive inside. The first person we saw was the head of the film festival Azize who of course is also the hostess of the event. She was wearing this beige lace affair and looked surprisingly fresh for someone who must been living a hectic life that was about to get worse.
Then we saw Selim who is a member of the grand jury this year and also has an exhibition within the festival whose opening was the next day and which I hope will be able to relate as well. We had to go inside pretty quickly since unlike Selim and a happy few our seats had no numbers and we had to find a place to sit if we hoped to see anything on stage. We managed to find a place at the middle though quite up at the back.
We saw Ozelm and Didem whom I know since I was a kid from Aktur Bodrum the place I used to spend all my summers when I was a kid. Many, many years later Ozlem became a MA student of mine. Didem is her sister and I saw that she was very pregnant. Since the baby was going to be a Gemini we chatted about this sign. Ozlem said Didem should have known better since their mom was a Gemini and I said I understand them completely since mine is too. Never pass an opportunity to complain about your mother is my motto even if it is only through horoscope signs.
Then I saw Muge who is the owner of a prestigious publishing house: Metis who had come with Fatmagul a famous feminist scholar. I saw Ertan who is a journalist I know from when I used to work for Radical, a daily leftish newspaper and whom nowadays almost single-handedly does all the work of the arts page including a gossip column. True to form he asked me if it was true that I was scripting a new “law” for film critics to adhere to and I answered in the affirmative by displaying my surprise that he had heard.
Then the ‘event’ itself started. It is not much of an event really. I mean it surprisingly resembles our very own SIYAD awards with Eczacibasi, the patron of art whose money sponsors the entire festival, replacing Atilla Dorsay, the doyen of film critics in Turkey. There is the life time achievement awards, there is the photos of the prominent cinema people who died the previous year, there is the music etc. The structure is the same.
I wonder what will happen when our great Yesilcam (Turkish Hollywood although this is a thing of the past here that no longer exists) stars all die out. These are the people that get the life time achievement awards and bring a touch of sparkle to these events, there is not a single actor that is even remotely comparable to them in star quality. In this particular instance the awards were given by Turkan Soray to Ekrem Bora, Ediz Hun and Izzet Gunay. And one last award was given to Claudia Cardinale. In short the event was a rhapsody of nostalgia and I suspect this is to please Eczacibasi who seems to be inviting all the old stars of his youth in a row each year.
Then there was a break before the opening film and we went outside having no intention of returning. The place is not a film theatre and does not provide the best viewing conditions. Plus we were hungry as it happens in these events that start too early to eat and end too late to eat.
And that’s when the socialising started. We saw Umit, a director friend who also happens to be Gencay’s ex boyfriend. We saw Selen an actress and singer friend of ours, who desperately wants to be a star. We saw Bige who looked like a star. We saw Hasmet, my only friend from university that I am still friends with whose documentary film will be screened at the festival, we saw Nilgun, a journalist friend I know from back when I used to work at Cumhuriyet. We saw Gulum, an ex student who works at the festival but is actually a good actress that has yet to make a break. We saw Ovgu, a fellow film critic and scholar. We saw Volga an ex-student who turned out to be quite a character actor. We saw Ferhat another ex-student who is about to move to Japan and become a father, not necessarily in that order.
Then we made a decision worthy of applause and decided to join Bige and Banu who were going to have dinner at Borsa restaurant, a very fancy meat restaurant, which is under the same roof as Lutfu Kirdar. All the award winners and jury members and what not were also going there for the festival’s official dinner, so not only the food but also the ‘view’, was quite good. Banu and Bige were wonderful dinner companions and we ended up having a much better time then we had bargained for. After dinner there were two parties to pick and choose from: the festival party at Karakoy Liman, would have all the celebrities but would be suitably boring and then there was the gay party for the exhibition at Tonic which would be fun since, let’s admit it, gays know how to party better than anyone. But then we had each other, Seda and I, and we were already content and entertained and much preferred to go home for a little private entertaining of our own.
I will simply start “in medias res” (a pretentious word for “in the middle of things”) and just start telling you (whomever you might be) about the opening I attended last night.
!f Istanbul is an international independent film festival that is in its seventh year and is organised by a dear friend of mine, Serra. This is the thing about Istanbul: Intellectuals are an endangered species (as they no doubt are all over the world). Therefore we are all on first name basis and never use the word intellectual so as to remain inconspicuous and out of dangers way. God knows what Serra will think when she realises I called her an intellectual for instance. She might blush or get angry or laugh or feel flattered or insulted. I will be ranting on this subject quite a bit in the days to come so enough for now.
The event started with a cocktail at 19.30 followed by ‘a special music and video performance’ at 20.00, followed by the screening of the opening film “Lars and the Real Girl”. Me and my girlfriend Seda (love of my life) thought that the cocktail is expandable and had managed not to attend it last year. But then again a lot of our friends have found us a bit introverted for their taste. In any case this time Gencay (our dearest friend who is the very reason I have a blog!) said we had to attend since Inanc (his friend) had no intention of skipping the opportunity of free booze.
Although I made the very unwise decision of wearing the high heeled boots I had bought at Camden Town 2 weeks ago (they are nice as a fetish not as actual boots I have decided) we managed to get there quarter to eight. The gala event was at Beyoglu AFM which is a big cinema complex with 10 theatres that has recently been renovated. It was the first time I was seeing the place after its renovation. Renovations are weird things I can’t but the life of me understand which part of the old building has been turned into this new structure and everything becomes dreamlike. This is the 3rd version of this theatre I have seen and I am afraid all 3 have become jumbled up in my mind turning into one big Lynch theatre. Incidentally the last Lynch film Inland Empire will be shown at the festival which I have already seen on DVD. But I digress. I will have to learn to stay on topic if this blog thing is going to work.
The place was full to the brim with all sorts of notable personalities but since this is a diary rather than a gossip column I will only note those of my personal acquaintance. My fellow film critic Cuneyt was the first to say high though we managed to loose him in the crowd then we found Gencay, Inanc and Aykan who is an ex-student of mine. He is doing a video activism performance on LGBT (please don’t make me write lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual every time) issues next Friday as a part of the festival and we talked about that. I will be going to it so there will be more on this later.
Then I saw a very old friend Eren who is the editor in chief of the independent very hip and artsy fashion magazine “2’de bir’. We used to work at the same newspaper Gunes back in the very beginning of 1990. (Oh god we are old!) She said she saw Mine and they decided we 3 should meet (Macbeth’s witches) Mine is another friend who used to work at the same newspaper back then but now has become a writer. I seriously don’t know how many novels she has published (shame on me). Of course we saw Serra and congratulated her. She was stressing about the screening and praying nothing would go wrong. It is a shame one can’t simply start enjoying and quit stressing at that point (the point of no return) but I know the feeling. Then we saw Sevil who is my ex, and her wonderful sister Belgin. Gencay wanted to meet Sevil for quite some time now, so we got that out of the way but by then the performance was starting and we went in. We were late meaning the theatre was full and we had to sit at the front which I hate, while we stepped on toes to get seated I managed to chat with yet another friend Olgu whose arm was in plaster. Didn’t learn how that happened but managed to gossip about Neo the new film school that he used to work at and which has rapidly proved itself to be a huge disappointment.
Then the theatre went dark. The musical performance was by a group of two woman and one man one of the woman Selen is an ex student of mine and I have been meaning to go to one of her concerts for the past 2 years now but alas could never make it so this was the icing on the cake of events this night. The performance was great. I am so feed up with people who think it suffices to simply stand on stage and sing. Here we had a thought through and perfectly timed stage performance. The music was also nice and novel with room for improvement, though Seda was not as impressed. Then again music is her line and (I actually know next to nothing about it) therefore it is more difficult to impress her in that score. I am determined to go to Selen’s next concert.
Then came the film, which is a typical American independent film about a man who falls in love with a sex toy! The film was very sweet. Too sweet actually one could even claim that the filmmakers took a radical subject and managed to drawn it in honey and render it domestic. But it was fun to watch and that is all that I ask really. In fact that’s what I like about many of these independent films: you thoroughly enjoy yourself as you watch but forget them immediately, many have this ‘feel good’ quality the likes of which you used to find in the good old golden age of classical Hollywood.
Anyhow Inanc it seems was not impressed and asked me “why don’t they show ‘No Country For Old Man’ at the opening. is it because they don’t want anybody to watch it for free” and I said “well I guess it is not wise to show hard-to-swallow-films-that get-to-you at openings. you go with things that will make your invited guests feel good, especially the sponsors”. But of course there is more to it than just that. I mean it would be a misrepresentation to the festival with the latest, and in my opinion best to date, Cohen bros film. Most films in the festival are nothing like it. Most are much more modest than this Oscar nominated film, that might find a place for itself in the ‘best 10 films ever lists’; most are much more like Lars and the Real girl.
There was a party at The Hall (more about this new club later) and we meant to go. However my feet were killing me (I am not used to high heels and should know better when occasionally I take the fancy) so I said to Seda l’ets just go home and change and then go to the party’. After all it was 11.30 and a proper party doesn’t kick in until midnight. You see we live at Cihangir - the intellectual ghetto- (I have a mind to create a dictionary of sorts to explain these things to those of you who do not live in this city) very near to Beyoglu, which is the centre of night-life and cultural activities. But the walk home under snowfall discouraged us to go back out. After all clubbing and parties are for younger and single people. Since we are lucky to have found each other, we have better options like cuddling and gossiping or having wild sex for the rest of the night. Therefore we decided we could do without the party.
Recent Comments