Turkey's first "Universal Sci-fi and Fantastic Film Festival" will bring cinephiles together with imagination and science in Istanbul this year. The festival, hosted by Beyoğlu Municipality, will be organized with a wide range of events from Sept. 28-30.
The festival will be held with the organization of the International Association of Science and Art Creators and under the management of the association's president, Filiz Dağ, and writer Gülşah Elikbank. In their joint statement about the festival, Dağ and Elikbank said that the idea of organizing such a festival came from the world's impasse due to various problems.
Emphasizing that science fiction and fantasy genres are increasing in world cinema, the festival management stated that they want to present the event to moviegoers to contribute to the development of these genres in Turkey and take advantage of the great potential. Noting that they set out with a competent team for a film festival with a universal vision, they added that they want to be closer to the world of young people, draw strength from them, and cross the borders and reflect on their new perspectives on the silver screen.
According to the information provided by Dağ, the festival team came together with value creators from many different fields such as genetics, aircraft, electronics, software, astrophysics, psychology, literature, theater, cinema, digital art, industry, entrepreneurship, music and finance. She emphasized that these creators met on the common grounds of "dreaming" and "producing."
Explaining the reason why the festival is called universal, Dağ said that they do not aim to stay on the basis of countries and international, instead, they encourage to dream of being between universes.
The event will present the Turkish audience with a festival in which science fiction films, where the technological tools of the future, space shuttles, robots and the unlimited possibilities of science come together with art and fantasy films that deal with themes based on imagination such as magic, supernatural events, mythology, for the first time.