The festival, featuring a line-up of five Turkish films, will be screened over four weekends at the Cinema Nouveau theatres: Brooklyn Nouveau in Brooklyn Mall, Pretoria, on Saturday, 23 and Sunday, 24 May; at V&A Nouveau at the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town on Saturday, 30 and Sunday, 31 May; at Gateway Nouveau at Gateway Mall in Durban on Saturday, 6 and Sunday, 7 June; and at Rosebank Nouveau in The Mall, Rosebank, in Johannesburg, on Saturday, 13 and Sunday, 14 June 2015. 

All the screenings will be free to the public. There is no pre-booking for this festival: tickets can only be collected at the participating cinemas’ box-offices before each film is shown.

The Turkish Film Festival is made possible by the Turkish Embassy in Pretoria. It is supported by the Turkish Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Culture and Tourism, in collaboration with Ster-Kinekor Cinema Nouveau, and with sponsorship from Turkish Airlines, Defy, CISCO-Cape Town Iron and Steel Works and Kristal Home Textiles. The festival offers cinema lovers the opportunity to explore contemporary Turkish cinema, with the screening of recent internationally-awarded films and box-office successes. 

The festival opens with Sivas, a drama that was awarded a Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival. It follows the relationship between an injured Kangal sheepdog named Sivas and an 11-year-old boy. Sivas, a fighting dog, is left for dead after losing a brutal match. The boy saves his life, then tries to use Sivas to impress his classmates.

The festival continues with a drama titled Egg, which is the first instalment of the Yusuf Trilogy, named after the eponymous lead character of the series. Both the film and its director have won numerous awards at various international festivals, including the 2007 World Film Festival of Bangkok, 2007 Valdivia International Film Festival and 2007 Sarajevo Film Festival.

Egg centres on poet Yusuf’s life following his mother’s death. He returns to his hometown after many years, for the funeral. Gradually, he succumbs to the memories in the house, the rhythms of the town and the spaces filled with ghosts.

Once Upon A Time, awarded the Grand Prix at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, is a masterpiece by Nuri Bilge Ceylan. It tells the story of a group of men who are searching for a dead body on the Anatolian steppe. The film is based on real events, and a number of quotations from stories by Anton Chekhov have been incorporated into the script.

Yozgat Blues, which won the 29th Warsaw Film Festival Fipresci Award, is the story of a city slicker forced to relocate to a small city in Turkey. Yavuz is a music teacher in Istanbul who also performs occasionally as a musician. When a performing gig is offered to him in Yozgat, a city in the middle of the country, he decides to seize the opportunity, even though he is reluctant to trade the stimulation of the big city for life in a more remote outpost. Although Yavuz is the protagonist, the film is a group portrait of half a dozen people whose lives intersect with his in Yozgat.

The festival closes with another drama, Love Likes Coincidences. One September morning in 1977, a young man rushes his pregnant wife to the hospital for the impending birth of their child. On the way, he crashes into another car, whose driver is also a father-to-be. That accident becomes the first of many coincidences that will connect the fates of the babies, Özgür and Deniz. 

With a variety of genres and award-winning titles being screened, the third Turkish Film Festival presents the best of Turkish cinema in South Africa. Ster-Kinekor Cinema Nouveau is delighted to be associated once again with this exciting festival presenting the best of Turkish cinema.

For more information about the Turkish Film Festival, visit www.cinemanouveau.co.za or sterkinekor.mobi. You can also download the Ster-Kinekor App on any smart phone to download the latest updates and news. Alternatively, connect with Cinema Nouveau on Facebook and on Twitter.