Annual Turkish Film Festival movies explore children’s lives

The third annual Bloomington Turkish Film Festival begins tonight, featuring films that explore children’s lives in Turkey through drama and comedy.\nThe films will be shown at 8 p.m. this week today, Friday and Saturday and next week on March 29, 30 and 31. All films are subtitled in English, and the screenings are free and open to the public.\nTonight’s film, “Boats Out of Watermelon Rinds” (2004), explores the passion for film felt by two boys from a rural village who rig a projector and host their own film screenings, which are met with disinterest by their neighbors.\nOn Friday, “My Father and My Son” (2005) presents a child’s view of the return of his father, a political prisoner, to their hometown after many years of incarceration.\nOn Saturday, “Journey of Hope,” the 1991 Academy Award winner for best foreign film, will be shown. “Journey” tells the grim story of impoverished Turkish immigrants struggling to survive in Europe.\nNext week’s films include “Cinema Is Like a Miracle” (2005), “Waiting for the Clouds” (2003) and “Vizontele” (2001), all of which also focus on children or teenagers. \nSeveral of the films in the series include themes of cinema or media, said graduate student Suncem Kocer, a member of the Turkish Student Association and one of four members of the film festival’s committee.\n“The cinema and media themes were an unintentional focus but were a nice coincidence and add an interesting element to the series, considering the role that film and television play in children’s lives,” Kocer said. \nAll six films were box office successes in Turkey, both those by well-known directors and those by relative newcomers, Kocer said.\n“These movies weren’t just included because they had children in them,” she said. “They were very popular in Turkey. ... They will be a big draw with the Bloomington Turkish community, who may have heard about them but not seen them yet.”\nThe festival coincides this weekend with the Navruz, or Persian New Year, celebration to be held Saturday afternoon in the Willkie Auditorium and with the 14th Annual Central Eurasian Studies Conference next weekend, both of which draw large crowds of people interested in the region, Kocer said. Thanks to the timing of the series and to campus and local interest, she expects about 50 people at each film showing.\nThe festival is sponsored by the Turkish Student Association and the Ottoman and Modern Turkish Studies Chair.