8. Vancouver Türk Filmleri Festivali
8. Vancouver Turkish Film Festival
10 - 18 Aralık 2021
Turkish Canadian Society
vtff.ca
contact @ vtff.ca
FILMS
- Two Types Of People / İnsanlar İkiye Ayrılır - 2020
- 9,75 / 9,75 - 2020
- Between Two Dawns / İki Şafak Arasında - 2021
- Fractured / Çatlak - 2020
- Leave The Door Open / Bırakın Kapı Açık Kalsın - 2021
- Weasel / Gelincik - 2020
- Brother’s Keeper / Okul Tıraşı - 2021
- When I’m Done Dying / Bir Nefes Daha - 2020
Two Types Of People / İnsanlar İkiye Ayrılır - 2020
Duygu and Bahadir work for a company that acquires banks’ receivables and their
job is to corner the debtor by psychological pressure and to maximize the money
collection. Ceren, a young woman deep in debt, is a new target for them. “Two
Types Of People” is the story of frustrated young people who are fighting to
survive in a ruthless system.
Director : Tunç Şahin
Cast : Burcu Biricik, Pınar Deniz, Aras Aydın, Başak Daşman, Erdem Akakçe,
Nezaket Erden
Duration : 102 min
Genre : Drama
9,75 / 9,75 - 2020
During his military service in 1990’s Southeast Turkey, Ahmet experiences
something that will haunt him for the rest of his life, trigger many post
traumatic attacks in most unexpected moments and leads to a distressing alcohol
addiction. In 2013, during the chaotic days of Gezi Park protests in İstanbul,
far from the bitter lands of the Southeast, Ahmet learns he has a brain tumor.
Just as the lines between truth and fiction, the dream and the reality start to
get blurred for him, he meets Serap; a “mirage” like the meaning of her name,
the love of his life.
Director : Uluç Bayraktar
Cast : Nejat İşler, Funda Eryiğit, Berkay Ateş, Eylül Dursun Menderes
Samancılar, Yusuf Mirza Zarg, İsmail Mirhat Zarg, Ercan Kesal and Şebnem Bozoklu
Duration : 117 min
Genre : Drama, Narrative Fiction
Between Two Dawns / İki Şafak Arasında - 2021
A worker is severely wounded in Kadir’s family business. The family council
discusses the legal results of the accident. If the worker’s wife cannot be
convinced to sign the waiver, it is decided that someone from the family should
take the blame and flee abroad. Although Kadir faces up to this self-sacrifice
for his family, he doesn’t want to leave Esma, with whom he has wedding plans.
Kadir tries to deal with the crisis and, in the meantime, unravels some secrets
about the accident and his family. After this, he is forced into making a moral
decision, which will have an impact on his dreams, his family and the life of
the injured worker’s wife.
Director : Selman Nacar
Cast :Mücahit Koçak, Nezaket Erden, Burcu Gölgedar, Ünal Silver, Bedir Bedir,
Erdem Şenocak
Duration : 91 min
Genre : Drama
Fractured / Çatlak - 2020
When he was working in the UK, Fatih borrowed a lot of money from his friend,
Ayhan to send to his family back in Turkey. Fatih has since returned to Turkey
and the debt remains unpaid. During a trip back home, Ayhan visits Fatih and his
family and politely asks for the money back. Ayhan’s request lights a slow-burning
fuse in the family, who live in the same building on the income from overlapping
business interests. And all the buried conflicts between different family
members come bubbling to the surface.
Director : Fikret Reyhan
Cast :Hakan Salınmış, Hakan Emre Ünal, Tuğçe Yolcu
Duration : 82 min
Genre : Drama
Leave The Door Open / Bırakın Kapı Açık Kalsın - 2021
Washington DC in the 1930s. The epicenter of American Jazz. Two teenage boys
newly arrived in the America’s capital are overjoyed at the prospect of being
able to regularly see their Jazz idols perform live. However, a nasty surprise
awaited them. The rigid segregation of the time meant they couldn’t even find
the albums of their favorite Black musicians in mainstream record shops let
alone find and attend live performances. Their passion for Jazz drives these two
teenage boys to reject the existing status quo and pursue a color-blind quest to
become a part of the Jazz scene.
Director : Ümran Safter
Cast : Themselves
Duration : 64 min
Genre : Documentary
Weasel / Gelincik - 2020
Ayhan is a young policeman, who left the job recently. He is trying to adapt his
own life in forest house meanwhile, trying to renovate and fix the house. One
day, he shooted a weasel in the forest by mistake. Came across a strange man at
that time. This man is going out hunting close to the house of Ayhan. He
introduced himself as Karadayi. As a first impression, he looks like weird ; but
also helpful and decent man.
Director : Orçun Benli
Cast : Ahmet Mümtaz Taylan, Kaan Yıldırım, Hande Doğandemir
Duration : 78 min
Genre : Drama, Thriller, Crime
Brother’s Keeper / Okul Tıraşı - 2021
Set over the course of a tense day at an isolated boarding school, this moral
drama follows a boy’s desperate fight to save his sick friend in the face of a
rigid bureaucracy.
Director : Ferit Karahan
Cast : Samet Yildiz, Ekin Koç, Mahir Ipek
Duration : 85 min
Genre : Drama
When I’m Done Dying / Bir Nefes Daha - 2020
An aspiring young rapper living in the Istanbul slum of Karacinar is addicted to
a cheap drug, bonzai, which threatens his career ambitions and his relationship
with an upper class DJ.
Director : Nisan Dağ
Cast : Oktay Çubuk, Hayal Köseoğlu, Eren Çiğdem
Duration : 97 min
Genre : Drama
The Vancouver Turkish Film Festival is organized under the auspices of the
Turkish-Canadian Society , a non-profit registered charitable organization, in
British Columbia. The goal of the Turkish-Canadian Society is to increase the
public’s knowledge and appreciation of the arts, culture, language, history, and
traditions of Turkey.
To achieve this goal, the Society has been organizing various cultural
activities collaborating with other organizations, and participating in
multicultural activities for many years. The Vancouver Turkish Film Festival (VTFF)
is currently one of the well-received and successful film festivals in Vancouver.
The year 2020 will be the first year for VTFF to reach its audience as an online
film festival. The Turkish-Canadian Society is excited about this new
undertaking and would like to thank our organizing committee and all of our
volunteers for their hard work and outstanding contributions to make this film
festival happen. We also would like to thank all of our community supporters for
their contributions.
Vancouver Turkish Film Festival
2019
Last year, the festival was held at the SFU’s Goldcorp Centre for the Arts
Cinema and it spanned three successive days. The Festival was well received;
both Turkish and Vancouver media recognized the event, publishing a number of
positive reviews. A panel discussion was organized in conjunction with the film
festival.
2020
This year the festival will take place from December 16th to 21st as an online
festival.
The films will be screened using the platform Eventive and the Northwest Film
Forum will manage the operation. VTFF is co-presented with SFU Woodward’s
Cultural Programme and NorthWest Film Forum this year.
We will be screening four award winning feature films and 10 pre-selected
amazing short films from Turkey. There will be Q&A sessions with the Directors
and actors after the film screenings.
Turkish Cinema
As a “melting pot” of many cultures for thousands of years, the land of modern
Turkey has so much to offer from a cultural sense, and the 7th Annual Vancouver
Turkish Film Festival is one of the ways to share Turkey’s multicultural
heritage with the residents of Metro Vancouver.
Turkish cinema has celebrated its centennial recently and flourished over the
years. The success of Turkish cinema has been quite notable in the last few
decades. The VTFF has also been a community partner to some of the Turkish films
that premier at the international festival in Vancouver.
FESTIVAL COMMITTEE
Eylem Sönmez
VTFF Committee - Festival Director
Eylem hails from Istanbul, Turkey where she worked as an advertising manager at
CNBC TV and HEARST Magazine Group for several years. Her incessant passion for
cinema compelled her to relocate to Vancouver in 2002, where she was awarded a
full scholarship to join the film production program of Vancouver Film School.
Upon graduation, she landed her first job on the Hollywood blockbuster of the
3rd X MEN as visual effects assistant. She then continued her prolific career on
American film productions such as Possession, Frankie and Alice, The Imaginarium
of Dr Parnassus, Underworld: Awakening, and Seventh Son. She is a member of the
Local Film Union IATSE 891 as Production Coordinator.
She has been organizing the Vancouver Turkish Film Festival since 2011. She is
also holding a volunteer position at the Turkish Canadian Society and BC
Children’s Hospital.
Naim Alper
VTFF Committee - Film Selection
Born and raised in Cyprus, Naim has called Vancouver home for the past 19 years
after long stays in the USA and the UK along the way. He holds a PhD in Computer
Engineering and works as a Software Developer. Having a keen interest in film,
particularly foreign and independent ones,he believes that international film
festivals widen viewers’ horizons and promote an appreciation of the
universality of the human condition. He is therefore excited to be in the
organizing committee of this cultural event.
Nural Sümbültepe
Assistant Director and Panel Coordinator
I worked in 9 countries as an English, Social Studies and Drama teacher before I
moved to Vancouver, where I continue to teach languages at Simon Fraser
University. I also teach K-12 at a school district in Canada. I live my life
with my husband, Paul and daughter, Nisan immersed in books, discussions and cat
hair. My enthusiasm for the written word- literature and story-telling- combined
with my interest for visual arts is what led to my involvement in Cinema and
VTFF. Finding speakers and connecting people for panel discussions every year is
what I love most. I am a small-town girl from Turkey who loves the outdoors but
I get excited about what comes with the urban living; cafes, art, cinema and
crowds.
Demet Edeer
VTFF Committee
Demet grew up amid the rich cultural diversity of Anatolia. She believes that by
embracing diversity, we come to realize our human commonalities. Since arriving
in Vancouver in 2000, she has volunteered in such roles as president, vice
president of TCS, coordinator of the Vancouver Turkish choir, the founder of the
Turkish Tunes, organizer of the Turkish Festival at Minoru Centre, and a member
of VTFF organizing committees. The success of the first Turkish Tunes (2009) led
to a dream for her; a Turkish Film Festival in Vancouver and, luckily, Eylem
Sonmez assumed this tremendous challenge. Under Eylem’s visionary leadership,
Demet assisted her when they staged the first VTFF in 2011 with an army of
volunteers. A physician by training, Demet completed an MHSc at UBC and works as
a health researcher in Vancouver.
Özlem Tekmek Kaymakçı
VTFF Committee
As a recent immigrant from Turkey, Ozlem has been an active member of TCS since
2012, helping organize various cultural events as well as being a founding
member of Vancouver Turkish Folk dances & Arts group.She has a chemical
engineering degree from ODTU and currently works as a packaging engineer at
Layfield Group.
Eli Haligua
Short Film Selection Committee
Eli was born in Istanbul. He has worked on numerous national and international
film projects over a decade. He graduated from SAE Sound Engineering
School with honours. He received his Master’s Degree on Sound Technologies from
Bahcesehir University, where he wrote his thesis on “The Affects of Dolby Atmos
Sound Technologies for Sound Design of the Turkish Cinema”. Now he lives in
Vancouver and studies Digital Music Production. He is a professional member of
Vancouver Post Alliance.
He worked on films that screened at well-known international film festivals such
as Cannes, Venice, Berlinale, Montreal, Karlovy Vary, Sarajevo, SXSW and Sitges
International Film Festival.
In addition to film, Eli is also interested in social and environmental issues.
He is a member of many human rights and environmental organizations. He has
several articles and interviews published about climate change, nuclear energy,
antisemitism and social conflict.
Özge Keleş
Graphic Designer
Özge studied architecture at Bahcesehir University in Istanbul as a full
scholarship student. In 2015, she relocated to Japan to complete her master’s
degree, with her thesis focusing on city planning and urban design. She worked
as a junior architect at Nikken Sekkei Tokyo Branch after graduation.
Özge is passionate about art and graphic design and has a keen interest in
community building, social justice, and environmental design. She began working
as a freelance graphic designer and Webflow developer after returning to Turkey
in 2018. She is also a member of the Design+Peace Organization, where she
currently serves as the general manager.
