Organized by the Boğaziçi Foundation for Culture and Arts, the Bosphorus Film Festival, one of the most anticipated events of the year, will be held between Oct. 21 and 28 this year.

The festival, which hosted the event at 50% capacity for the last two years due to the global pandemic, has started the countdown to its 10th edition as it looks forward to welcoming a full audience this year. The festival will stand out with its screenings, masterclasses and discussions on outstanding examples from Turkish and world cinema.

National category

The films that will take part in the National Feature Film Competition, which productions completed after Jan. 1, 2021 can enter, will be evaluated by the jury for the Best National Feature Film Award. In this year’s National Feature Film Competition, various monetary awards will also be given in the categories of Best Director, Best Actress, Best Actor, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography and Best Editing.

In addition to the category awards, the Best Debut Film Award supported by Akli Film with a monetary award, and the FILM – YÖN Best Director Award and the FIYAB Best Producer Award supported by the Film Producers Professional Association (FIYAB) with a monetary award will be presented in the national competition.

This year’s festival will also introduce a new category for the documentary genre, which was in the national feature film competition and short competition categories in previous years. With the expansion of the scope of the National Short Documentary Competition, all documentary films will be able to apply to the National Documentary Competition without any length limit.

International movies to be screened for 1st time

All the films that will take part in the International Feature Film, International Documentary and International Short Fiction Film competitions of the festival will be screened for the first time in Turkey this year. Therefore, the International Feature Film competition of the festival, which presents new directors whose films are screened at the world festivals as well as well-known directors, is one of the most anticipated cinema programs among the festival line-up this year.

Since the very first years, the festival has been sustaining its interest in short films. Experimental, animated and fictional films with a duration not exceeding 20 minutes will be able to apply for the festival, where the best film awards will be given in two different competition categories as National Short Fiction Film and International Short Fiction Film. All films in the short competition sections of the festival will also be nominated for the Ahmet Uluçay Grand Prize.

Applications for the 10th Bosphorus Film Festival, which will be held with the support of the General Directorate of Cinema of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the Corporate Partnership of TRT, and the details about the application will be announced by the Boğaziçi Culture and Arts Foundation in the upcoming days.

Bosphorus Film Lab

Applications for the Pitching Platform and Work in Progress will be received at the Bosphorus Film Lab, the industry-oriented activities and project development section of the festival. Film projects at the production or idea stage will be able to participate in the Bosphorus Film Lab, which is organized with the corporate partnership of TRT to contribute to the development of films in Turkish cinema and to provide financial and moral support for young producers and directors to produce new films. A project in the Pitching Platform will receive the TRT Co-Production Award, while another project will receive the Postbıyık Color Editing Award. Projects within the scope of Work in Progress will be presented for the Ministry of Culture and Tourism Special Award and the CGV Mars Distribution Award.

All developments and current news about the festival can be accessed via bogazicifilmfestivali.com and the festival's official social media accounts.