Güney’s films to be screened in US

WASHINGTON - Anatolia News Agency
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Late Turkish director and actor Yilmaz Güney’s films will be screened in the United States and Canada as part of a traveling movie event.

Along with the films, a documentary featuring Güney and Turkish cinema will be shown in the cities. They will also be included in the Turkish Films Screening program that will be held in 2012 at the Lincoln Center, as well as in the spring and winter programs of American universities. The last stop for the films will be Washington. Symposiums will take place at the universities of George Mason and Georgetown.

The films, including “Yol” (The Way), “Umut” (The Hope), “Sürü” (The Herd), “Seyit Han,” “Aç Kurtlar” (Hungry Wolves), “Arkadaş” (The Friend) and “Zavallılar” (The Miserables), will be shown in the U.S. cities of Los Angeles, Houston, Berkeley/San Francisco, New York and others, as well as the Canadian cities of Vancouver, Toronto and Ottawa, in association with Turkish curator Ercüment Akman, the Culture and Tourism Ministry’s Office in Washington and Güney Film. The screenings will start on Aug. 19 at the Cleveland Art Museum.

Akman said some of Güney’s eight most unforgettable films would be screened together in the U.S. for the first time.

“I think that programs including films by a certain director will be more useful in promoting Turkish cinema instead of organizing Turkish film festivals. We are planning to organize similar programs for Turkish directors such as Reha Erdem, Fatih Akın and Semih Kaplanoğlu,” he said.

In the past, some Güney films were lost during screening in Europe, he said, adding that Güney Film and director Hüseyin Karabey tried to collect these films. He also said the ministry bought copies of some Güney films, collecting 11 of them on a DVD. Akman said some significant cinemas and museums in North America had asked to screen Güney’s films for many years.

‘Officials are very pleased’

Explaining how the decision to show the films in the U.S. was taken, he said: “With the collaboration of Harvard University, Güney Film and the Tourism Ministry, eight films were shown at the university in four to five days. Later on, the films were kept in the university’s archive to be sent back to Turkey. When I learned about it, I wanted these films to be shown in more places and had a talk with Karabey. We got in touch with the ministry and made contacts so that six or seven films could be shown in the country. Actually, such programs should be organized one or two years beforehand. If we had been able to do it, we would have been able to show more films.”

U.S. and Canadian officials are very pleased to show the films in their own countries, he said, adding that Australian producers were also interested in showing the films.