Numerous Events Will Accompany Screenings at the Ayvalık International Film Festival
Organized by the Eye Society in collaboration with the Ayvalık Municipality, the Ayvalık International Film Festival begins on September 17. Throughout the festival, which will conclude on September 22, 70 of this year’s most exciting domestic and international films will be screened for audiences. In addition to film screenings, the festival will feature talks on various topics and the Eye Society Children’s Weekend. Now in its third year, the Young Cinema program will once again allow students to participate in workshops every morning, experience the festival, and—for the first time this year—create projects in different fields. Through a partnership with Space for Culture, four students from the Stockholm Film School will also be in Ayvalık as part of the Young Cinema program.
The first talk of the Ayvalık International Film Festival will take place on September 19 at 4:30 p.m. at ASKEV Sera. We will pose the questions we’ve asked ourselves repeatedly while preparing the festival—“Which films should we screen? Which films are connected to one another? How can we create a cohesive program?”—to Cem Altınsaray, director of MUBI Turkey, who has recently come to the forefront for his content, and film writer Okan Arpaç. In this conversation—which will explore what it means to curate films and why we choose certain titles—festival advisor Fatih Özgüven will also join the discussion with his own questions.
On Friday, September 20 at 3:00 p.m., the film Composing Worlds directed by French filmmaker Eliza Levy will be screened for free at Kırlangıç. The film delves deeply into the ideas of French anthropologist Philippe Descola—who dedicated his life to understanding how modern people construct their worlds, shifted his focus to Europe after conducting research in the Amazon, and is regarded as the heir to Claude Lévi-Strauss—and examines a unique experiment conducted in France. Following the screening of the film, which attempts to develop a different perspective on the relationship between people and their environments, director Reha Erdem will give a talk. Neandria, one of the earliest films on sustainability, will also be screened as part of the festival program. Erdem will focus on the question of how we can make our world a more livable place.
Tayfun Pirselimoğlu’s 2013 film I Am Not Him will be screened on Saturday, September 21, at 2:00 p.m. at Kırlangıç. The film will be screened free of charge with Tayfun Pirselimoğlu in attendance. Following the screening of this successful example of dark comedy—which centers on the theme of identity transformation—at 4:30 p.m., actor/screenwriter/author Ercan Kesal and psychoanalyst Yavuz Erten will lead a discussion with the audience on the themes explored in the film.
The film, starring Ercan Kesal, will be examined through interpretive frameworks such as twinning and the process of becoming twins; the search by empty identities for a life in which to settle; the intensity of desire and the occupation of the object of desire; and the fact that living a life always involves a degree of fiction.
On Sunday, September 22 at 4:00 p.m., Prof. Dr. Ali Albert Salah and Assistant Professor Dr. Almıla Akdağ from the Department of Computer Science at Utrecht University will give a talk on artificial intelligence—a technology that has become an integral part of our daily lives, even if we don’t always notice it—. In the talk titled “Artificial Intelligence and Creativity” , the discussion will focus on how and to what extent artificial intelligence approaches human emotions and creativity, as well as the benefits of working with AI. Prior to the talk, accompanied by readings from Louis-Ferdinand Céline’s novel of the same name, Vikki Bardot’s Journey to the End of the Night / Journey to the End of the Night—an attempt to rethink the prominent themes of modern cinema, loneliness and alienation—and The Match, directed by Alkan Avcıoğlu, a three-round boxing match where the boundaries of the ring constantly expand and contract and the number of opponents fluctuates. Both films were produced using artificial intelligence.
Eye Society Children’s Weekend on September 21 and 22!
Ayvalık International Film Festival’s project, Eye Society Children’s Weekend, launched to reach audiences of all ages, will once again bring children together with a rich two-day program in its second year. Eye Society Children’s Weekend will take place on September 21 and 22 at the Sabancı University Küçükköy Creative Technologies Workshop.
In this year’s workshops, children will turn a story they’ve imagined into a screenplay, film it, and voice the characters; they’ll visit a fairy-tale world; draw pictures accompanied by music and dance; experience what it’s like to be an archaeologist; and design their own heroes. They’ll also use their imagination and manual skills to create wearable designs and participate in yoga and mindfulness workshops. The workshops, which are open to parents as well, will explore the concepts of secure attachment and separation through games. Eye Society Children’s Weekend events will be held free of charge again this year; for events marked as “limited capacity.”
Saturday, September 21, following the workshops, the children’s film Fox and Hare Save the Forest, directed by Mascha Halberstad, will be screened with Turkish dubbing at the Küçükköy Sabancı Creative Technologies Workshop. The film, which tells the story of the adventures of the Beaver—who blocks the river’s flow to create a lake for himself—the Owl, who panics upon seeing this and gets lost deep in the forest, and the Fox and Hare who set out to find the Owl, highlights themes of nature and friendship.
A video workshop for children will be organized under the leadership of Alper Şen, Ezgi Koman, and the FİSA Children’s Rights Center. In the workshop titled Can We See What We Think?, children will create a film by first bringing together their ideas and then their recordings, following a process that spans from scriptwriting to filming and editing. The sounds for the children’s film will be created in the Be the Sound of the Film workshop. In the workshop led by Açelya Sakarya and Meltem Ergezen, children will discover the sounds in the film and use various materials to add sound and voice-over to the film.
Storyteller and instructor Aslıhan Hazar will take the children on a visit to the land of fairy tales. They will reach this magical world by together overcoming the mountains, forests, giants, and dragons that fairy-tale heroes have conquered, helping one another just as they do in the stories. Sometimes they’ll take flight, and other times they’ll journey to the unknown worlds beyond the mountains.
Artist and architect Hazal Kaya will lead a workshop filled with games designed to strengthen the bonds between parents and children. In the first session of the four-part workshop titled I Write, I Draw, I Dance, energy levels will rise as everyone gets to know one another. In the Dynamic Drawings session, participants will step into the world of drawing accompanied by music and dance. In the Creative Collages session, children will use their imaginations to create 3D collages. In the final session, the works will be exhibited, and parents and children will open an exhibition together.
Archaeologist Ufuk Kırca will introduce children to an excavation simulation. By experiencing the working conditions of archaeologists firsthand, children will learn about concepts such as teamwork, duties, and responsibilities. The workshop aims to help children correctly understand the concept of cultural heritage and develop sensitivity toward it through a learning method that involves seeing, feeling, perceiving, and doing.
In the Design Your Hero workshop led by theater actor and drama instructor Deniz Gündoğmuş, children will play games and dance. During the workshop, which will feature a dramatization of the fairy tale Who Is the Strongest?—about the battle between the Sun, the Wind, and the Rain—children will design their own heroes inspired by the story.
The “Children’s Yoga and Mindfulness Workshop – The Metamorphosing Caterpillar,” led by Ezgi Gündoğmuş, will transform the story of a caterpillar turning into a butterfly into a narrative through the children’s physical participation. The workshop aims to foster children’s creativity through yoga poses, drama, and playful exploration.
Dilan Mine Uğurlu will lead two different workshops open to children aged 7–12. In the Look at My Shadow workshop, children will prepare to “fly” by creating their own designs and wearable wings. Hot Air Balloon In this workshop, children will design a wearable hot air balloon using boxes they’ve colored as they like, along with a few other materials. In this workshop, children will bring a wearable decoration to life and get ready to sway in the wind.
Psychologists Inci Vural and Virna Gülzari will meet with children ages 4–7 and their parents in the Separation: Separating & Becoming an Individual workshop. This workshop, centered on the pieces Hatching from the Egg and Flying from the Nest from the Dream Rooms exhibition at Küçükhan Ayvalık, explores children’s process of separating from their parents. In this fun group activity, children will experience the concepts of safe distancing and separation through playing together.
The festival, which will kick off with an opening night event at the Ayvalık Municipality Grand Park Amphitheater, will feature screenings this year at the Ayvalık Municipality Vural Cinema Nejat Uygur Stage, Fabrika Ayvalık, İsmet İnönü Cultural Center, ASKEV Greenhouse, and Kırlangıç Ayvalık. Ticket prices during the pre-sale period from September 7–17 will be 120 TL for full price and 80 TL for discounted tickets; starting September 17, prices will be 150 TL for full price and 100 TL for discounted tickets. Screenings at ASKEV Sera and Kırlangıç Ayvalıkwill be free of charge. Tickets for the opening night, where Kurukahveci Mehmet Efendi will serve coffee as the host, are on sale for 200 TL.
Ayvalık International Film Festival; Balıkesir Metropolitan Municipality, Ayvalık Municipality, Space for Culture,Dutch Consulate, Mey|Diageo, Paribu, Kürşat Olive Oils, Komili, Zeze/Ayvalık, OGM Pictures, Gold Film, Karga7, Ayvalık Macaron Colony, Kendine Has, Bilginer-Melin Ayvalık Art, Culture, and Education Foundation, Kurukahveci Mehmet Efendi, Asteros Film, MUBI, Borusan Otomotiv, Ayna Cunda, Zoi Cunda, Manzara Holiday Homes, Ayvalık Chamber of Commerce, British Council, Nona Cunda, çöp(m)adam, Kratos, Ayvalık Deniz Yıldızı Restaurant, Native Collective, Ayvalıkzade, L’Arancia Cunda, Macaron Muhallebicisi, Ayvalık International Music Academy, Festival Friends: Tibet Akhuy, Esra Başak, Ela Başak Atakan, Şerif Kaynar,Fatma Kürşat, Mustafa Kürşat, Eren Tapan, and İnci Vural.