20/04/2015 - Seven projects have won funding from the Turkish-German Co-Production Development Fund, while the Works in Progress awards were cancelled

The Istanbul Film Festival's industry section, Meetings on the Bridge, announced its awards last week.

In the Film Development Workshop, the jury, comprising Gabrielle Dumon (Le Bureau Films), Giovanni Robbiano (Mediterranean Film Institute - MFI), Khalil Benkirane (Doha Film Institute), Meinolf Zurhorst (ZDF) and Sergio Garcia de Leaniz (Eurimages), decided to give out the following awards among the ten selected projects (read the full list here). 

The Meetings on the Bridge Award, worth $10,000, went to Dead Horse Nebula by first-time feature-film director Tarık Aktaş and producer Güneş Şekeroğlu. The film follows a sequence of incidents taking place around a small village.

The Death of a Father and a Son by director Zekeriya Aydoğan and producer Erhan Örs received the CNC Award of €10,000. Aydoğan's feature-length documentary Naked was set to premiere in the National Documentary section of this year's Istanbul Film Festival, which was cancelled due to the boycott (see the news). His new project is a drama set in 1980s rural Kurdish society.

The Melodika Sound Post-Production Award went to director Mahmut Fazıl Coşkun (Wrong Rosary, Yozgat Blues [+see also:
trailer
film profile]) and producer Halil Kardaş for The Announcement. It recounts a story connected to a failed military coup in the 1960s, and also attached to the project is the screenwriter and actor Ercan Kesal, known for his scripts and his roles in Three Monkeys [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Zeynep Ozbatur
film profile] and Once Upon a Time in Anatolia [+see also:
trailer
film profile].

The Turkish-German Co-Production Development Fund, founded through a collaboration between Istanbul Film Festival Meetings on the Bridge, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg and the Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein Film Fund, with the support of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Turkey, held its fifth edition and awarded seven out of ten submitted projects, including new efforts by Hüseyin Karabey (Come to My Voice [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Hüseyin Karabey
film profile], My Marlon and Brando), Melisa Önel (Seaburners) and Erol Mintaş (Song of My Mother [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Erol Mintaş
film profile]).

List of awarded projects:

Album [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Mehmet Can Mertoglu
film profile], Mehmet Can Mertoğlu
Co-producers: Yoel Meranda - Kamara Film (TR); Alexander Ris - Neue Mediopolis Filmproduktion (DE) - €30,000 

Hamarat Apartment, Hüseyin Karabey
Co-producers: Hüseyin Karabey - Asi Film (TR); Alexander Ris - Neue Mediopolis Filmproduktion (DE) - €20,000

The Memoirs of Antoine Köpe, Nefin Dinç
Co-producers: Gamze Paker - Atlantik Film (TR); Titus Kreyenberg - Unafilm (DE) - €20,000

16, Melisa Önel
Co-producers: İpek Kent - Yedi Film (TR); Ufuk Genç - Cine Chromatix (DE) - €10,000

Songs of Fraternity, Çayan Demirel
Co-producers: Ayşe Çetinbaş - Surela Film (TR); Zülfiye Akkulak - Newa Film (DE) - €10,000

Crows, Erol Mintaş
Co-producers: Erol Mintaş - Mintaş Film (TR); Verena Graefe-Hoet (DE) - €15,000

Idle Moments, M Cem Öztüfekçi
Co-producers: Annamaria Aslanoğlu - İstos Film (TR); Titus Kreyenberg - Unafilm (DE) - €10,000

In solidarity with the boycott of the festival that occurred after the censorship row over the documentary North, three of the five projects that were supposed to take part in the fifth edition of the Works in Progress Workshop also pulled out, so these awards were cancelled, too. The two remaining works, I Am Not Apache by Aytunç Akad and Blue Bicycle [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Ümit Köreken, were screened for the members of the jury, Karel Och (Karlovy Vary Film Festival), Rickard Olsson (Picture Tree International) and Stienette Bosklopper (Circe Films), who subsequently held one-to-one meetings with the directors and the producers of the films.