ANKARA, Turkey – This month’s annual Istanbul Film Festival has fallen apart midstream over a censorship row with the Culture Ministry, after it stopped a last minute screening of a documentary on the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Organizers announced on Monday that the majority of the films would not be screened, and that the closing ceremony later this month also had been cancelled, after many filmmakers withdrew their entries to protest the Culture Ministry’s move.
The trouble began when the ministry insisted at the last minute before screening Sunday that “Bakur” (North), a film about the daily lives of PKK members that includes interviews with senior leaders, could not be shown without a special permit.
That quickly turned into a censorship row, after other filmmakers whose works were being screened at the festival decided to pull their entries in protest.
In addition, more than 100 Turkish filmmakers, including the most recent winner of the Cannes film festival’s Palme d’Or award, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, signed a letter objecting to censorship at the festival.
The producers of the objectionable film, Surela Film Production, said in a statement that the procedures for screening a film amounted to “open censorship.”
“We do not accept these prohibitive practices that violate the rights and freedoms of filmmakers,” they said in a statement.
The Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV), which organized the April 4-19 festival, said that “Bakur” was pulled because of a special clause invoked by the culture ministry.
It said that an official letter from the ministry insisted that films produced in Turkey needed an official registration certificate before they could be shown at festivals.
“Festival participation requires that ‘films produced inside the country are registered and recorded.’ The screening of films produced in Turkey without this certificate results in legal sanctions,” it explained.
“Therefore, the Istanbul Film Festival will not be able to screen films that do not have the aforementioned certificate,” the statement said.
It added that, “Films produced outside Turkey are exempt from the scope of this regulation.”
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