Istanbul Film Festival rejects PKK documentary
The Turkish Ministry of Culture is facing strong protests from the film industry over its censorship of Kurdish themes.
On April 12, the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts announced that "A Guerrilla Documentary: Bakur (North)" would not be screened at the prestigious Istanbul Film Festival. The reason cited for the cancelation of the screening: a missing registration document.
Director of the Istanbul Film Festival, Azize Tan, voiced her disappointment about the cancelation decision during a televised interview. “We [as artists] failed to stand up against censorship in time. We struggled to get by the elusive rules and meander through the red tape. Now the audience and the producers of art are paying the price again.”
Film producers explained that the cost of the registration document is not the only factor making it difficult to obtain one. For instance, many filmmakers just finalized their movies before the festival, and many other films screened during the festival have not been finalized. A director may decide to share 180 minutes of the uncut version of his movie with the festival audience, but when the film is released to the box office, it may appear as a shorter, edited version. Once the movie is given a registration document, it cannot be altered according to Turkish laws.
This documentation is only required for locally produced movies. For instance, if "Bakur" were the work of a foreign producer, the film would not be required to obtain this documentation. This policy is seen as grounds for discrimination against the domestic movie industry. Many producers believe that even if the registration process was waived, the government would have found another technical excuse for its arbitrary intervention.
