14/01/2015 | Writer: Ömer Akpınar
Festival director Bilge Tas has a lot of experience organizing film festivals but she says making a queer film festival real is much more difficult.
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Pink Life QueerFest will kick off tomorrow in Ankara for the 4th time. Having started its journey in 2011, the first and only queer film festival in Turkey will also have a 3-day-long screening in Istanbul this year in collaboration with Baska Sinema.
Festival director Bilge Tas has a lot of experience organizing film festivals but she says making a queer film festival real is much more difficult: “Because you cannot make use of state or local funds.”
However, Tas feels glad not to feel “the shadow of state” over the festival:
“The more support you get from the state, the more suitable it will be for your manners to speak from the mouth of state and to reflect what it says.”
Queer films will be shown in Ankara and Istanbul
Tas underlines the importance of international support for the festival:
“Our biggest supporters are the Embassy of United States and the Norwegian Embassy. They keep supporting the festival from the very beginning faithfully.”
The festival also enjoys a great deal of voluntary support, the most visible ones being Hacettepe University’s Department of Translation and Interpreting with its film translation and Bilkent University students taking Media and Gender course with their “unofficial trailer”.
The official teaser of the festival which features famous actors Ayta Sozeri, Serra Yilmaz and Gonca Vuslateri increased the visibility for the 4th Pink Life Queer Fest on social media. The festival will also host some panels, theatre plays and workshops.
The 4th Pink Life Queer Fest will be held in Ankara between 15-22 January and in Istanbul between 23-25 January.
You can find the full program here.
Tags: arts and culture
