Founded two years ago, the Armenia-Turkey Cinema Platform has played a vital role in bringing together young filmmakers, supporting the production of films, and facilitating dialogue between artists from the two countries. The project’s Turkey Coordinator Çiğdem Mater spoke with Southeast Europe: People and Culture about how the Platform started, and about her pride in this civil initiative between Armenia and Turkey.
“Five of the short films shown in the Films Beyond Borders section of this year’s Istanbul International Film Festival were products of the Armenia-Turkey Cinema Platform (ATCP), which is something I would like to build on,” said Çiğdem Mater. “This project aims to bring together young filmmakers from Turkey and Armenia for dialogue and collaborative work.”
ATCP was developed in collaboration between Anadolu Kültür, a Turkish civil initiative established to foster dialogue through arts and culture, and the Golden Apricot Yerevan International Film Festival. The Platform organises workshops, provides funds for films and guides young filmmakers from both countries towards joint productions.
The creation of the ATCP was announced in April 2009 during the Istanbul International Film Festival, but the initiative for this project goes back further - to 2007 to be exact, when one of the Turkish members of the documentary jury in the Golden Apricot Film Festival decided to do something to encourage dialogue between Turkey and Armenia. “Before travelling to Yerevan, Nurdan Arca approached Anadolu Kültür to start a project between Turkey and Armenia,” recalls Mater. “She started the initial talks, later becoming the point of contact between the two countries for the ATCP.”
One year before the official announcement of the Platform, the first meeting took place in Istanbul. “A total of 20 young filmmakers from Turkey and Armenia came together in 2008 for a workshop which ran parallel to the Istanbul International Film Festival. The workshop was entitled ‘How cinema deals with history’,” said Mater.
Since then, nearly a dozen meetings have taken place, bringing together more than 50 filmmakers from both countries. “Since 2008, the Armenia-Turkey Cinema Platform meets every year in April at the Istanbul International Film Festival, and in July, in Yerevan,” says Mater: “The first meetings were simply discussions among filmmakers from both countries who were interested in participating in our initiative. We talked about cinema and the ways that we could work together. The last three meetings however have seen nine films take off as the project is developing momentum and receiving funds to support them.”
‘Films Beyond Borders’
Mater also explained how the participants are chosen: “Anadolu Kültür and the Golden Apricot select participants for the Platform meetings through announcements, which they make regularly. We received 62 applications for the 2010 Istanbul meeting, and 32 for the Yerevan meeting. We invited ten of the applicants from Istanbul and eight from Yerevan, and eventually supported eight projects.”
Çiğdem Mater says that within a week after the first call for participants, they had already received 40 short film scripts. “This just shows how many young filmmakers are ready and willing to become part of this dialogue.” Within a short period of time, ATCP has achieved its very first results, five short films, which were all screened at the Istanbul International Film Festival: Masters of Doves by Arthur Sukiasyan, Do Not Get Lost Children by Gülengül Altıntaş, Puppet Theatre by Altan Bal and Canay Özden, Neighbours by Gor Baghdasarian and Galata by Diana Kardumyan. These shorts will also be screened this July in the Golden Apricot Yerevan International Film Festival, and the Turkish cities of Diyarbakır and Gaziantep.
Mater says that the ATCP is only one part of the growing number of civil initiatives among Armenia, Turkey and the diaspora communities. There are now also participants from Lebanon.
“While the relationships between the governments of the two countries have been quite problematic in the last decade, there has been unprecedented enthusiasm for dialogue between Turkish and Armenian communities. Sadly, it was the murder of Hrant Dink, the Turkish-Armenian newspaper editor, in 2007, which spurred greater dialogue between civil society organisations” said Mater. “The result is film screenings, concerts, exhibitions, books, panels, workshops on history and oral history projects.” Mater is happy to be part of that dialogue: “Each time we meet, we get to know each other more, and we are experiencing firsthand how cinema helps build dialogue. We are very pleased with how things are progressing.”
