Another Istanbul Film Festival has come and gone, leaving in its wake moments of discovery and failed attempts at securing tickets to see your favorites. The 45th edition of the spring festival brought together titles from other festivals and offered its usual selection of Turkish talent.

For me, it was the festival where I managed to miss several films I had already tried to see in other festivals. Foremost was "The Christophers," a film that seems to appear like a will o’wisp on festival programs and then to disappear with few traces. It remains a "must have" item as it brings together Michaela Coel and Ian McEllen under Steven Sodeberg’s direction. Another film on the program that had been doing the festival rounds was "The Wizard of Kremlin," with Jude Law as Vladimir Putin under Olivier Assayas’ direction (Assayas’ "Clouds of Sils Maria" (2014) and "Personal Shopper" (2016) are personal favorites), adapted from a book by Emmanuele Carere, France’s Russophile in residence. And finally, there was the curious "Rose of Nevada," about time-travelling sailors, starring my George MacKay and the better-known Callum Turner.

Festival circuit

The Istanbul Film Festival’s best pick from the circuit was Sharbanoo Sadat’s "No Good Men," about a camerawoman in Kabul trying to do her job as the Taliban advances on the town. I was also happy to see Ivan Salatic’s "Wondrous Is the Silence of My Master," a connoisseur’s item telling the story of a Montenegrin poet, based on the life of Petar Petrovic Njegos. Imran Perretta’s "Ish" was yet another interesting item, telling the story of the friendship between a British Asian and a British Palestinian boy.

Another pick that must have been at the top of many festival goers’ lists was "Rose," with Sandra Hüller, for which she won the Best Leading Performance at the Berlinale. For better or for worse, Hüller has been designated "the serious female performer" of her generation, and everything she touches turns to gold in certain critics’ eyes. Well, not for this one. I adored her "Anatomy of a Fall" (2023), and once you have acted in "Zone of Interest" (2023), there is nowhere for you to go but the Pantheon of "dramatic actors." Although the premise of "Rose" is interesting enough – a woman assuming the identity of a man in 17th-century Germany – the film falters under its own weight of "trying to say something." I have already seen pictures of the next big Hüller vehicle, "Fatherland" (I mean, the weight is already there in the title), and it’s about Germany’s most well-known literary family, the Manns. As a Germany watcher and a one-time inhabitant of the "fatherland," I would of course go to see it anyway, but then one of my (and several other film critics’) favorite directors, Pavel Pawlikowski, is directing, so it’s definitely on my list.

Another missed opportunity in the program was Claire Denis’ "Le Cris de Gardes" ("The Cry of the Guards"), adapted from a '70s play about a Senegalese man who asks for his brother’s body back from a European corporation’s compound where he has died "by accident." And with this explanation, we have probably solved the puzzle of how Matt Dillon and Isaach de Bankole, directed by the auteur Denis, whose 2010 "White Materials" is one of my favorite films about colonialism, can go wrong. Sometimes you just have to respect the genre and leave it in its natural habitat – not all plays transfer well to the screen.

I had my own discoveries at the Istanbul Film Festival, the foremost being the documentary "Nova ’78." It’s always nice to catch up with a literary icon that has been at the edge of your vision through your own journey into literature. The documentary is made up of footage taken during the Nova Convention in 1978, bringing together the avant-garde artists of the time, with Burroughs as the central figure who seems to promise them a better life in outer space. I disliked Burroughs on sight – no one who is surrounded by such zealous sycophants, including the likes of Patti Smith, Alan Ginsberg and Frank Zappa, can come out of it as a likeable character, but Burroughs, at least in this footage, seems to excel in being haughty and holier than thou. The film made me feel smug about this "hole" in my reading – I had not missed a thing.

Setting the distaste Burroughs brings aside, the convention did include some very interesting acts, which opened a window into '70s America and "alternative art." The most momentous moment came, however, when Burroughs and some of his friends started to talk about Iran in a private conversation, with Burroughs saying that the U.S. needed to help the shah as the mullahs were about to take over. So much for American counterculture. The film, then, works as testimony that U.S. liberals and "misfits" always work in tandem with the American empire’s interests.

Another interesting film was the Ukrainian film "To the Victory!", repurposing Russia’s slogan for the war. The film follows the fortunes of a group of Ukrainian filmmakers who are trying to make a film about the end of the war, and the story weaves in and out of their own lives and those of the characters they’re filming. There are very good jokes about what they have to put in their film to get European funding. The film works best as "men on the verge of a nervous breakdown," as they try to console one another in their forced celibacy – they have all sent their wives abroad for safety.

This theme, women having made it abroad, and men missing them "at home," is picked up by another gem, "Inside Amir," where the titular character has stayed back in Tehran, while his girlfriend has made it to Italy. It is a cliche to say that a film is a love letter to a certain city, but this one really is, with Amir traveling through the wide, leafy streets of Tehran on his bike. The film, like "To the Victory!", focuses on male relationships, and there is a very similar scene where these bosom buddies get drunk and dance in the privacy of their homes.

It is very touching, in both films, to be let into the life of cities that are being bombed by imperial centers right now, with no amount of avant-garde art produced in the U.S. able, or intending, to stop what is going on.