SPECIAL MENTION

Boston Turkish Festival's 18th Documentary & Short Film Competition (2023)

Featuring: Mete Akalın, Cevat Çapan, Atilla Dorsay, Burçak Evren, Mustafa Göçmen, Ahmet Kutlar, Filiz Kutlar, Mazlum Kutlar, Onat Kutlar, Seza Kutlar Aksoy, Ali Özgentürk, Nijat Özön, Adnan Özyalçıner, Ömer Pekmez, Vecdi Sayar, Aydın Sayman, Giovanni Scognamillo, Ahmet Soner, Jak Şalom, Rekin Teksoy, Hülya Uçansu

After a military coup in 1960, many urkish intellectuals went to France to study. One of them, Onat Kutlar, discovered his passion for cinema at the Cinémathèque Française and decided to establish a cinematheque in Istanbul as well. Just before the 1968 protests, he founded the Turkish Sinematek. In "those days of fire, love and anarchy," art cinema took Türkiye by storm thanks to the Sinematek, and films from all over the world were shown for the first time. But the Sinematek had to fight on three fronts. Against Turkish filmmakers who rejected Western cinema, against economic problems, and finally against political repression when the Sinematek met its tragic end in another military coup in 1980. The intellectual film culture created by Sinematek continues to influence Türkiye today. It is still remembered as a courageous adventure.

Önder ESMER

Önder Esmer was born in 1990 in Istanbul. He graduated from Istanbul University’s Faculty of Communication, Radio and Television Cinema Department in 2016. He finished his graduate studies at Maltepe University’s Faculty of Fine Arts where he wrote his thesis on the history of the Turkish Sinematek and its founder Onat Kutlar in the Film Design Graduate Program in 2020. “Days of Fire, Love and Anarchy” is his first feature-length film project.