Altın Portakal to bring culture of cinema to Antalya under Sayar

Sayar, also the artistic director of the Antalya Foundation for Culture and Art (AKSAV), which this year is the sole organizer of the festival, says he is here to help Antalya gain a culture of cinema, in order to place the Golden Orange festival in the international league.

“In the past five years, the festival has really achieved a high level of success with respect to international standards. We will continue this line of progress. Foreign festival organizers who see our program tell us that we've really managed to prepare a quality program,” Sayar said during an interview with Today's Zaman on Monday in İstanbul.

“From now on, Antalya needs to publicize itself more [internationally]. It was sort of an introverted, national [festival], but in time it has started to become known. We need to carry this forward and publicize Turkish cinema more,” adds the 59-year-old Sayar, whose experience as a festival organizer also includes many Turkish film days held abroad.

Still, he adds, there's much that needs to be done: “I have never seen a real passion for cinema in Antalya [during the festival's previous years]. When I go to film festivals in Europe, I see the movie theaters packed; everybody, young and old, forms long lines in front of theaters at 8 a.m. This is a process. Without festivalgoers like the ones in Europe, it is impossible to make Golden Orange a festival like Venice or other high profile festivals.”

Stressing that what makes Venice, Locarno and Cannes the major film festivals they are is the audience as well as their policies of convenient, serious and smart art, Sayar added: “Golden Orange has come to be organized without an artistic director for many years. Lacking such important details, we were trying to compete with the [region's] top festivals. There are 10 to 15 film festivals among the festivals of secondary importance in the world. We are not one of them yet, but we can be. You know, Turkey is currently among the G-20 countries. Our festival can also be in the top 20 in the world. When Turkey becomes one of the G-8 countries, we will then be able to compete with the world's top film festivals.”

A large budget alone is not enough to make a festival internationally renowned and acclaimed, added Sayar. “New festivals with big budgets are being organized in Arab countries and in the Far East, yet they cannot be counted among the world's leading film festivals. It does not only take money, but also a certain level of cultural richness.”

Contribution to cinema industry

Sayar said he thinks there are three main contributions of a festival: contributing to the cinema industry, especially locally, contributing to the host city's cultural wealth and contributing to the culture of the city's people.

“Festivals such as Golden Orange affect and activate their local markets all the time. The festival must contribute to opening our cinema to the world and to maintaining common projects with other cinemas in the world,” he said.

While Antalya is already popular among tourists, Sayar said, the festival aims to enrich the city's cultural life. Explaining that France's Cannes used to be a small beach town before the Cannes International Film Festival and that the same can be said of Italy's Sanremo, which is famous for its international music festival, Sayar said the Golden Orange festival is of the utmost importance in causing the city's name to be associated with culture and arts.

“But I am not sure that Antalya has achieved this potential so far,” the experienced film critic and writer said, noting that the festival had an overwhelmingly national focus for many years while its attempts to gain an international dimension have been under way for just five years. “Films from around the world have been shown before at the festival; however, more attention is being paid to the international aspect now,” he added.

“Festivals also help expand the horizon of residents in whose city a festival takes place. American productions dominate around 90 percent of the Turkish cinema market; during Golden Orange, many films from around the world are shown and festivalgoers become acquainted with the cinema industry in other countries,” he said.

This year's Golden Orange festival will screen a large number of foreign films in an attempt to contribute to the internationality of the event. There are 12 films from Eurasia running in the international competition. Out of competition, the Golden Orange festival will screen films from 40 countries, without any limitation on their locations. A total of 185 films will be screened at the festival, “which makes this year's program the richest to date in the festival's history,” Sayar said.

As the country's most prestigious film festival, Turkey has high expectations from the Golden Orange festival. Noting that around 3,000 film festivals are held around the world annually and that most of them aspire to be the cinema hub in their region, Sayar said that when it comes to Antalya, the Golden Orange festival can make the city a movie hub for the Mediterranean region.

“It is possible to make Antalya a cinema hub for the Mediterranean region, from the Balkans to the Caucasus. Therefore, the selection of the festival focuses on movies from these regions. Such a selection may attract a greater audience. A film buff coming to Antalya for the festival has the opportunity to get to know Turkish cinema as well as the cinema of the regions mentioned,” he said.

While some interpret the internationality of the festival as a hindrance for the development of the Turkish cinema industry, Sayar said this aspect is important in opening Turkish cinema to the international market.

Reiterating that the international focus of the festival has been on the agenda in recent years, Sayar said the festival aims to bring world-famous producers and foreign film critics together in Antalya and promote Turkish movies. “The movies displayed here will be seen at other festivals, and then they will expand to foreign markets.”

The 46th Golden Orange International Film Festival will take place on Oct. 10-17.