Being a foreign guest at the Istanbul Film Festival and watching some films different than Turkish doesn’t make much sense. Not because the international competition is not important, on the contrary – it has an exceptional regulation to select films based on arts or literary adaptations and presents a variety of filmmakers coming from around the world. But far more intriguing is the Turkish cinema program consisting of subsections titled Documentaries, New Turkish Cinema and the National Golden Tulip Competition. The overall number of Turkish films is around 50, so one could hardly follow all of them in the course of the festival but this is the most reasonable choice, I suppose, as the rest are easily reachable abroad. Watching Turkish films within the environment in which they were created, meeting and talking to their authors after the screening surrounded by the native context is a chance to assimilate them better than at any other part of the world. Moreover, the Turkish selection at the Istanbul Film Festival is far more precise than the one at the Antalya Film Festival for instance, where all kind of local film production is presented and a non-insider could easily get lost among the traditional wide audience focused production (much closer to soap operas than to art house cinema), and even make some wrong conclusions about the new Turkish cinema in common.

Ten films for three days are not much but considering the crowded cinema halls I sometimes couldn’t get in the evenings, the irresistible parties and off-program events, this amount is reasonable. Although the festival hosts took care for convenient press screenings in the mornings and early afternoons, I was rather curious to watch local films in the classical Beyoglu and Atlas cinema theatres on Istiklal street together with the regular moviegoers. Audience in Istanbul is excited and stimulating for a newcomer especially if I come from Bulgaria, where people are quite apathetic about local production. It is also an incomparable delight to share “seats” on the staircase with elegant ladies and couples in their mid-fifties, so impatient to plunge into the recent Turkish film harvest.

The only true representative of the second artistic wave in the Turkish cinema (formed around the international success of Yilmaz Guney’s Yol, that won Palme d’Or at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival) in the festival program was Dervis Zaim with Shadows and Faces – the third part of his trilogy dedicated to art. The most acclaimed Turkish director nowadays Nuri Bilge Ceylan didn’t show his newest film Once upon a time in Anatolia but the news that it will be premiered in Cannes this May came during the Istanbul Film Festival. As if to compensate his absence, the jury gave the best film and best director prices to Hair directed by Tayfun Pirselimoglu who is obviously a passionate follower of Ceylan’s style of slow action based mainly on details. Thus Hair is a typical example of the “fake Ceylan copies” that crave to be as acclaimed as Uzak, for instance. The story is somewhere between the mysterious and depressive love obsession of a cancer suffering wig seller to a female client, tortured by her husband. Ambitious, but also mannered movie that sets on a plot minimalism,looking for maximum psychologism.

Much more interesting is the upcoming generation of filmmakers in the new Turkish cinema who were born about 30 years ago. These are well-educated young directors and producers educated at home or abroad, coming not only from Film Schools but having different backgrounds. The stories they tell through images are still existential, intelligent and meditative as their predecesors but more communicative and respectful to viewers, even entertaining. Such as Safe Teoman’s descrete threesome love movie "Our grand despair", which was already in the competition at the Berlinale. Reminding the classical triangle in "Jules and Jim", the plot observes closely two friends in their 30s who imperceptibly fall in love with the sister of their former classmate, while on the other hand she overcomes the stress of losing his parents in a car accident. Delicate and fine artfilm that does not solve the big drama of existence, but hints the cost of small ones and definitely deserves the special jury award.

Much more intense and introvert, but digging deeper into troubles of the human’s psyche is Tolga Karacelik’s debut “Toll Booth”. It’s essence circles around the battle of a man who tries not to turn into a robot as he works eight hours per day as a toll booth attendant on a highway. When a beautiful woman “disturbs” his everyday routine, he suddenly has to deal with duties and emotions simultaneously and slightly starts to lose connection with the reality. Although Toll Booth came to Istanbul with a debut award from Antalya Film festival, the jury didn’t pay any attention to its qualities which is a pity as Karacelik is obviously a prominent director of the developing third wave in the Turkish cinema.

I managed to see also Ilksen Basarir’s Merry-go-round which focuses on the complex problem of incest and domestic violence, the clearly social Seyfettin Tokmak’s Broken Mussels about lost souls in the enormous and hostile Istanbul, Selim Demirdelen’s The Crossing which is a drama of families desperately trying not falling apart, the documentary film-ode to Bergman Journey to Bergmania that follows Hakkı Kurtuluş and Melik Saraçoğlu’s trip to the sacred island of their icon director… Few more titles too but they appeared to be the mandatory for every festival selection disappointments, so better not mention them. However, after seeing Our Grand Despair and Toll Booth, I am confident that contemporary Turkish cinema will soon be flooded by a fresh new flow that would be interesting and enjoyable to be followed and discussed further.