• COMPETITIONS KICK OFF The screening of films that participate in the Festival’s National and International competitions will start. The exciting race for Golden Tulips will begin with the arrival of jury members in Istanbul. • FROM FICTION TO FILM The film adaptation of Orhan Kemal’s 72nd Ward, which takes as its subject the lives of prison inmates in 1940s, full of misery and pain, is part of the National Competition line-up. It will be screened at 13.30 in Atlas. Follo...

• LA COMMUNE (PARIS, 1871) STARTS! One of the Festival’s most anticipated films, La Commune (Paris, 1871) lasts 345 minutes and reenacts history. The film will be shown in Pera in three installments at 11.00, 13.30, and 16.00. The screening will be attended by the son of the film’s director Peter Watkins, its editor and casting director Patrick Watkins.   • FROM THE KIRGHIZ CINEMA Kirghiz director Aktan Arym Kubat draws a funny and touching portrait of small-town ...

On April 7, 2011, the IFF opened with...   • A “COMING OF AGE” STORY FOR ADULTS Limbo director Maria Sødahl and lead actress Line Verndal met their audience in Istanbul for the second time. Sødahl said the final act of Sonia in the film meant that she chose freedom. She said that the relationship between men and women are universal and that Limbo was a “coming of age story” for adults. • IN HOMELAND Syllas Tzoumerkas, the director of Homeland, which re...

• MIRANDA RICHARDSON WAS IN ISTANBUL Accomplished actress Miranda Richardson was in Istanbul for the screening of Nigel Cole’s latest film Made in Dagenham and she met her fans and viewers at Akbank Sanat after the screening of the film in which Richardson portrays female cabinet minister Barbara Castle, who at the end of the 1960s paved the way for the Equal Pay Act in the UK. Richardson said Castle was a very passionate and strong woman, adding, “I never had the chance to meet h...

   CROSSROADS, the Co-Production Forum organized by the Thessaloniki International Film Festival, created by the TIFF Director Despina Mouzaki and headed by Marie-Pierre Macia, has selected 15 projects this year, based on the quality of the script, the creative team and the likelihood of it being produced. All selected projects are either produced or co-produced by a country in the Balkan or Mediterranean area or contain story elements linked to these regions. The selected projects come fr...