Vancouver's Turkish Film Festival is back for its 9th year this month

The Turkish Canadian Society and SFU Woodward’s Cultural Programs have announced the 9th annual Vancouver Turkish Film Festival (VTFF).

The festival opens on Thursday, November 17, at the Vancity Theatre and continues on Saturday, November 19 and Sunday, November 20 at the SFU Goldcorp Centre for the Arts.

On opening night, there will be a gala reception at 6 pm, followed by a screening of Love, Deutschmarks and Death, directed by Cem Kaya. This essay documentary will be followed by a Q&A session with the director.

The film recounts the musical and cultural history of Turkish “guestworkers” in Germany since their recruitment in 1961. Filled with interesting characters, familiar singers, the wistful songs of the early years, and the hip-hop of the post-reunification period, the film also brings xenophobia and racism to the forefront. The film is also significant as this year marks the 60th anniversary of Germany recruiting workers from Turkey.

Over November 19 and 20, there will be a wide array of screenings, Burning Days from the director of A Tale of Three Sisters — a film that was previously included at the festival in the past. It tells the story of a young, principled prosecutor who has been newly appointed to a small town. It follows his insistent, determined investigation and filing of a case in which he himself seems to be entangled in.

In Snow and the Bear, set in another small town in the depths of winter, we follow a young nurse recently appointed for her obligatory service. The atmosphere is tense in the town as rumours abound that there is a bear killing livestock. As well as dealing with her disapproving father back home, she finds herself involved in a missing person’s case.

Zuhal tells the story of a woman who has become irritated and obsessed by the meowing of a cat that only she seems to be hearing. Her pursuit of finding the source introduces the occupants of the other flats in her building and the dynamics between them.

You Me Lenin (VTFF)

Using a real-life incident that saw a bust of Lenin wash up on Turkey’s shores as a starting point, You Me Lenin employs black humour to tell the story of a police procedural investigating its disappearance on the eve of it being ceremoniously displayed in the town square. We meet a whole lot of eccentric town folk being interrogated to find the culprit.

Rabiye Kurnaz vs George W. Bush is based on a true story and follows Rabiye, a German woman of Turkish origin, in her fight to have her son released from Guantanamo Bay. Her naiveté and sense of humour is infectious as she and a German human rights lawyer take the case all the way up to the US Supreme Court.

In The List of Those Who Love Me, a drug dealer with an exclusive clientele of artists and celebrities in a fashionable neighbourhood of Istanbul is finding it increasingly hard to get supplies due to a police crackdown. The clientele are also his friends, so he takes increasing risks to find new suppliers so as to remain in their circle.

In addition to the feature films, there will also be a selection of short films. These films are diverse in content, genre, and style. Some films are directed by women, some focus on LGBTQ issues, and some tackle political, ethnic, and social conflicts.

On Saturday, November 19, there will also be a discussion panel, titled ONSCREEN and UNSEEN: Representation and Identities In Flux, which will kick off at 2 pm.

Since 2016, VTFF has had panel discussions on political discourse related to film in collaboration with SFU Cultural Programs. This year the panel will take place at the SFU Goldcorp Centre for the Arts on Saturday, November 19 at 2pm. The discussion will be about how cultural/personal identities are represented on screen and how quickly they change due to digital platforms in a hypermediated, globalized society.

The panelists come from very diverse backgrounds, and they will shed light on how they see cultures and/or identities (including their own) are represented in film and how this representation has changed over the years.

The panel includes prominent people in the film industry from Europe, Turkey, and Canada, such as Turkish/German filmmaker Cem Kaya, Chilean/Canadian actor, author and playwright Carmen Aguirre, Turkish actor Belçim Bilgin, recognized filmmaker Baljit Sangra, and Adel Iskandar, a Professor of Global Communication at Simon Fraser University.

The panel is free and open to the public, to reserve a spot, go to VTFF’s tickets page.

Turkish Film Festival

When: Thursday, November 17th Opening Gala Reception; screenings Saturday, November 19th to Sunday, November 20th
Where: Opening night at Vancity Theatre — Screenings at SFU Goldcorp Centre for the Arts
Price: Various prices — available here

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