The 61st Antalya International Golden Orange Film Festival, which was founded by a group of students interested in theater with a trip to the Aspendos Ancient Theater in 1953 and transformed into a festival in 1963, will be held for the 61st time this year. Hosted by Antalya Metropolitan Municipality, the festival will take place on October 5-12, and the city will be the scene of film screenings and artistic events for a week. Organized with the motto “Our story together”, this year's posters and promotional videos of the festival featured the public in the leading role. As every year, Venus statues, the symbol of the organization, were placed at different points in the city center. Preparations are underway at the Antalya Cultural Center, where film screenings will be held. The festival, which is described as “Turkey's Oscars”, will start on Saturday, October 5 at 15:30 with the traditional cortege parade where artists greet the public in open-top cars. In the evening of the same day, the opening ceremony will be held at the Glass Pyramid with Sedef Avcı as the host and Serhat Kılıç's stage show. At the ceremony, Işıl Yücesoy, Şerif Sezer, Erdal Özyağcılar, Müjdat Gezen and Selçuk Yöntem will receive honorary awards and Farah Zeynep Abdullah and Aras Bulut İynemli will receive achievement awards. Within the scope of the festival, the selections that will compete for Golden Orange and the films that will premiere in Turkey will meet art lovers for a week. After a week of excitement, the award and closing ceremony, which will be hosted by Şebnem Dönmez, will be held on October 12 at the Glass Pyramid after the “Red Carpet” parade. Deniz Yavuz, the artistic director of the festival, told AA correspondent that after a one-year break, they are experiencing the excitement of Golden Orange again together with the public. Stating that all preparations have been completed, the final checks of the national, international and documentary film selections have been made, and the screenings will start as of Sunday, Yavuz said that the tickets offered for sale were sold out on online platforms in a short time. Explaining that the cortege, which has become the symbol of the event, will also be held this year, Yavuz continued as follows: “We held meetings with various professional organizations, artists, Antalians and the municipal administration about how the cortege could be updated. We made some updates. The cortege will be held as usual, starting from the area in front of Atatürk Cultural Center before the opening ceremony and ending at the old municipality building. We have movie artists coming from Istanbul, the artists of Yeşilçam who are still with us, they are positive about participating in the cortege. Our classic cortege will take place with the participation of artists.” Yavuz stated that they prepared for the festival in a short time this year and emphasized that they used the public instead of artists in posters and promotional videos in order to break the negative atmosphere of last year and to highlight the stories of citizens. Yavuz said that Golden Orange is Turkey's longest-established film festival and continues to claim to be “Turkey's Oscars” and added: “Ferzan Özpetek, our jury president this year, started his career in Antalya, won an award here with his first film ‘Hamam’ and went on to have a tremendous career. There were quality selections in the competitions this year as well. We think that new filmmakers, directors and people with an open path will emerge from these films.” Deniz Yavuz stated that they will organize a workshop in the field of cinema this year and bring the problems of the sector to the table, and emphasized the importance of this for the art community. What about the 60th festival? Pointing out that they did not forget the 60th festival that could not be held last year, Yavuz said: “We could not organize the festival last year due to misfortunes, we are all sad. We have learned what to do and what not to do by looking at last year. Instead of continuing the 60th from this year and closing that year, we preferred to continue the process by continuing from the 61st. We will talk about how the 60th year can be compensated, what can be done, with our filmmakers who come here. From next year onwards, we will talk about what can be done concretely about the 60th year, how awareness can be created, how the rights of that year can be paid, how the rights that have been violated can be restored, in a very beautiful environment this year.
Kaynak: AA
