The fourth edition of the United Kingdom’s only independent Turkish film festival, Taste of Anatolia – Films from Turkey (TOA), is to commence on Saturday, featuring screenings of 38 star-studded movies.
The weeklong event will extend from TOA’s home city of Cambridge to London and continue online, allowing even more people across Britain to enjoy new cinema from Türkiye.
Ten screenings are feature-length films and 28 shorts, with five of the 38 films documentaries. The selection includes both prominent and upcoming Turkish directors tackling a myriad of themes, such as anti-war, and a heist thriller using a blend of comic book and live-action drama.
One of TOA 2022’s headline movies is "Klondike," a multiple award-winning Ukrainian-Turkish production directed by Maryna Er Gorbach. The film centers on a family in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine whose world is violently disrupted by the crash of a flight in 2014 and the following events. The film travels to Cambridge’s Arts Picturehouse following screenings at prestigious festivals such as Sundance, and the London, Berlin and Istanbul Film Festivals.
Many of the films will be enjoying their U.K. premieres, among them the award-winning "Pure White," the debut feature of Necip Çağan Özdemir, screening at Dalston’s Rio Cinema. The other one is "Silenced Tree," written, produced and directed by Faysal Soysal, who will be in attendance. Finally, another making its U.K. premiere is the critically acclaimed family drama "Fractured," director Fikret Reyhan’s follow-up feature to his award-winning film "Yellow Heat." The film will be screening at Old Divinity School and Artlens, London.
Netflix’s hit series "The Club" actor Salih Bademci and Nur Fettahoğlu, who rose to global fame as the haseki, roughly translating as "consort," of the Ottoman sultan in the Turkish period drama "Magnificent Century," are among those starring in the festival’s top picks.
