5. International Kızılay Amity Film Festival
The Red Crescent International Amity Short Film Festival Program Announced!
The 5th International Red Crescent Amity Short Film Festival press conference is held in İstanbul Sepetçiler Pavilion.
The Red Crescent International Amity Short Film Festival will be held this year on December 22-25 in memory of the esteemed poet/singer Neşet Ertaş. This year, at the festival, where 522 films from 58 countries applied, The Turkish Red Crescent will give the “Red Crescent Humanistic Look Award” to a film competing in the “Humanistic Look” documentary section. Total of 189 films applied for the festival’s competition category, 89 films were for the Humanistic Look Documentary, 266 for the Panorama, and 13 for the Forty Years of Gratitude sections.
This year’s jury chairman of the festival will be Ebru Ceylan, whose first short film, “On the Shore,” was selected for the main competition at the Cannes Film Festival in 1998 and won many awards in various national and international festivals. This year’s jury members are Akzholtoy Bekbolotov, the cinematographer of the film “Shambala,” adapted from the Kyrgyz writer Cengiz Aytmatov’s novel “The White Ship,” Murat Tırpan, the cinema critic and the head of Okan University Faculty of Fine Arts Department of Cinema-TV, Hande Soral, the successful actress of the TV series “Little Women,” ‘The Thumbbird,” “Revenge of the Serpents,” “Resurrection: Ertuğrul,” and “Once Upon a Time in Çukurova.”
Kerem Kınık: We are also breathing deeply with this festival
Dr. Kerem Kınık, President of the Turkish Red Crescent and the Honorary President of the festival: “As the Red Crescent, our raison d’etre focuses on the suffering, plight, and pain of people, we try to shelter and strengthen their dignity; and we call others to solidarity and empathy to solve their problems. We call on humankind. We are all parts of humanity; we have to protect it. We strive to ensure that art complements people’s search for meaning, highlights the different features and realms they live in, and reaches all the artists who do this on creative platforms. We are also breathing deeply with this festival. This year, we are organizing it in memory of Neşet Ertaş, the passionate voice of our steppes, one of the last representatives of Bektashi, Garip, and Abdal culture. He told us about what he called the affairs of the heart, maintained his modesty until the end of his life, and said, “I’m the artist of people” when he was given the title of state artist. In the Humanistic Look section, there will be some documentaries on the area that the Turkish Red Crescent focuses on. Last year, we presented the award on behalf of Duna. This year, we will present it in memory of Algerian Emir Abdulkadir, who taught the idea of the Red Crescent to Duna and taught the world the idea of protecting the honor of the person you are fighting against. We try to convey this atmosphere to the refugee camps in Syria, Somalia, and Arakan and to people who seem a little distant from art. Because a person’s soul gets hungry just as his body gets hungry, his soul gets hurt just as his body gets hurt. People need to be supported with all their bearing; we see art as food. I want to thank our friends who contributed, our advisory board, our jury members, and our artists.”
Faysal Soysal: Our goal is to build a bridge of friendship with filmmakers
Festival Director Faysal Soysal explained the festival program: “One of our main goals is to be an ointment to the side of wars that increase grudge and hatred, especially in the time we live in, and to bring the concept of friendship to the fore. Especially when this concept is reflected in artworks, and it is compelling when it is reflected in a short film with a completely independent and free understanding. Friendship also has such a genuine side. Another goal of ours is to develop the concept of friendship, reconstruct it with the language of short films, and establish a bridge of friendship with filmmakers worldwide. We have a tremendous knowledge of friendship in Anatolian geography; our poets and ashiks immortalized them in their works. We organize the festival every year in memory of someone to get to know them better and to deserve their philosophy. Since the first year of the festival in 2018, we have been hosting all the directors selected for the competition, bringing them together with the film students, and building a bridge of friendship.”
The new festival poster was shared
This year’s festival poster was also shared with the public at the press conference. The poster, designed by Iranian artist Elahe Behin, emphasized the festival’s friendship theme, which spread from Turkey to the whole world.