Documentarist Istanbul Documentary Days, Turkey's longest-running documentary festival, is preparing to celebrate its 15th anniversary on June 25-30 with a program selected from the most creative documentaries of the last period, and local and foreign guests.

Documentary Days will be opened on June 24 at Istanbul’s Cemal Reşit Rey Concert Hall with the screening of Cem Kaya's music documentary "Love, Deutschmarks and Death." Celebrating 60 years of Turkish music in Germany, the movie is about the independent, and as of yet, unknown music of emigrated Turkish guest workers and their grandchildren in the country. In a musical and essayistic form, Kaya shares insights into the unique liveliness of this forgotten subculture. "Love, Deutschmarks and Death" has won the Panorama Audience Award at this year’s Berlinale.

The extensive program of the event will be spanning six venues on both sides of Istanbul. During the festival week, more than 70 films from Turkey and the world will be screened at the French Cultural Center, Cine Majestic, Aynalı Geçit and Müze Gazhane, while workshops and other events will take place at Yapı Kredi Culture and Arts on Istiklal Street and Postane in Galata.

Germany, the guest country

The Istanbul Documentary Days has selected Germany as the guest country this year. In the program of the festival, eight documentaries from Germany, including "Bettina" (2022) by Lutz Pehnert, "Mr. Bachmann and His Class" (2021) by Maria Speth and "Genderation" (2021) by Monika Treut – all of which were screened at the Berlinale – will be shown. Besides, a special section is dedicated to "Genderation" director Treut with her three films.

Swedish Magnus Gertten and Dutch director Aliona van der Horst will also come to Istanbul as guests of the new 3x3 section of the festival, which aims to introduce three documentary masters with three films each year. The program will feature three films by the directors, including Gertten's "Nelly & Nadine" (2022), which made its world premiere at this year's Berlinale, and van der Horst's latest film, "Turn Your Body to the Sun" (2021), which premiered at International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA). A panel on "creative use of archives in a documentary" will also be held with the participation of both documentarians who work with archival material in their recent films along with "Love, Deutschmarks and Death" director Kaya, who also uses a lot of archive footage in his films. The relationship between archive and documentary is one of the main themes of this year's festival, which will also present other movies that open up horizons such as "Ultraviolette and the Blood-Spitters Gang" (2021).

Movies on ecology

One of the innovations of the Documentarist 15th Istanbul Documentary Days is the open-air film screenings to be held at the Müze Gazhane. In cooperation with the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IBB), films that deal with ecological problems will be screened for five days in Müze Gazhane. Parallel to the films to be screened under the title XR Extinction Rebellion, there will also be a panel on Turkey's plastic garbage imports from Europe.

Another comprehensive section of the program is titled Parenting and Coming of Age Stories. In this part, families will be able to watch "Shabu" (2021) with their children, and a panel titled "The Role of Art in Child Development" will be held in collaboration with Bütün Çocuklar Bizim (All Children are Ours) Association.

Support for local documentaries

At the festival, which received more than 120 applications despite the pandemic conditions and will screen 30 among them, the first and second films by local directors that are chosen as winners will be nominated for the Johan van der Keuken New Talent Award. The jury of this year's JvdK New Talent Award consists of film academic Özlem Güçlü, programmer and digital communication expert Karen Cirillo, director Ahu Öztürk, film editor Selda Taşkın and documentary filmmaker-academic Can Candan. In addition, Natalia Moussienko from Ukraine, Teresa Vena from Switzerland and Övgü Gökçe from Turkey are on the FIPRESCI jury, which will evaluate the international selection and present the International Film Critics Awards.

Animadoc

This year, a two-day workshop will be held with Documentary Association of Europe (DAE) founder Brigid O'Shea and IDFA Markets Manager Selin Murat on the search for international funding and the first steps of project development for documentarians. The Animation workshop (AnimaDoc) prepared by Tomaş Dorushka and A. Nazlı Kaya of the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, or FAMU, will return as well. Another activity on documentary practice is the presentation titled "Editing and Trailer Preparation in Documentary" with the participation of editors from the Film Editors’ Society of Turkey (KUDA).

The Documentarist 15th Istanbul Documentary Days will be held this year with the support of the European Union Sivil Düşün Program, Dutch Royalty, the Goethe Institute, German Films, the consulate generals of France, Switzerland and Sweden, Dimitrie Cantemir Cultural Center, the Embassy of Lithuania, Anadolu Kültür, the IBB and Müze Gazhane and with venue contributions of FKM, Yapı Kredi Culture and Arts, Postane, Aynalı Geçit and the cooperation of many institutions. Screenings at the French Cultural Center and Cine Majestic cost TL 15 ($ 0.87) with tickets to be purchased at the venue entrance, while the screenings and all side events at Aynalı Geçit and Gazhane can be attended free of charge. The detailed program can be found on www.documentarist.org.