#4: Restoring Istanbul's 1960s Short Film Festival

As the first short-film competition inTurkey, Hisar quicklybecame both a laboratory and forum for independent filmmakers. Many people picked up a camera and began making films, now that there was finally a place to screen their work. The jury included some of the era’s most prominent filmmakers, artists and writers; newspapers and magazines took notice and the screening halls were crowded. There was still no film school and no established roadmap for making independent cinema, but for perhaps the first time in Turkish film history, short films were treated as works of genuine value.

The festival came to an abrupt end with the military coup in 1971 and the films shown at Hisar have not been screened in the nearly sixty years since. Yet the change in attitude, the documentary sensibility in many of the films, the engagement with the time’s political and social reality, and intention to provoke change, continued to circulate quietly.

Over a four-year span, more than a hundred films shot on 8mm and 16mm were screened at Hisar. In collaboration with Salt Research, Deniz was able to locate and/or digitise approximately fifteen of these films. Because the organisers and participants documented the festival as thoroughly as they could, they have been able to rediscover Hisar and begin the work of placing it back into Turkish film history.

Alongside the talk by Deniz Tortum, several of the digitised short films that were shown at Hisar will be screened. The silent film Souvenir of Istanbul will be accompanied live by musician and composer Ricky Cherim, also known as Meetsysteem. The session will be moderated by Elif Rongen-Kaynakçi, curator at Eye Filmmuseum.

Guest

Deniz Tortum (Istanbul, 1989) works in film and immersive media. Among his recent work, his feature documentary Phases of Matter (2020, IFFR) explores a state-run teaching hospital in Istanbul; his essay video Our Ark (2021, IDFA, co-dir Sister Sylvester) reflects on our efforts to create a virtual replica of the real world, a digital Noah’s Ark; and his virtual reality work Shadowtime (2023, Venice Film Festival, co-dir Sister Sylvester) explores the history of virtual reality and its relation to the climate crisis. He is currently working on an archival project with Salt Istanbul about the 60s independent Turkish film scene; and developing a film around spiritism and climate anxiety.