Illegal wins Golden Bull at Festival on Wheels in Artvin

Belgium’s Oscar submission, which had its world premiere in Cannes last May, was picked as the main prizewinner  - with a purse of € 10,000 - by the International Jury consisting of filmmakers Marion Hänsel and Dervis Zaim, Directors’ Fortnight selector Gaelle Vidalie and Norwegian film critic Nils Vermund Gjerstad.

The Silver Bull – worth € 5,000 - went to Chinese director Wang Xiaoshuai’s Cannes 2010 competition title Chongqing Blues, while a Special Mention was made by the jury of Turkish filmmaker Tayfun Pirselimoglu’s Hair which had been shown in competition at the Locarno Film Festival last August.

Meanwhile, the Turkish film critics’ association jury awarded its prize to Szabolcs Hajdu’s dark fairytale Bibliotheque Pascal which had screened in the Berlinale’s Forum this year.

The International Competition’s lineup of ten titles also included Agnes Kocsis’ Adrienn Pal, represented in Artvin by her co-screenwriter and husband Andrea Roberti, the Peruvian brother directors Daniel and Diego Vega’s debut October, and Estonian Veiko Ounpuu’s Sundance 2010 title The Temptation of St. Tony.

This year’s edition of Festival on Wheels began in Ankara on 3 December before moving eastwards to Artvin near the Georgian border on the 10^th and making one last stop for four days from 16-19 December at the Black Sea town of Ordu.

The festival programme marked the 30^th anniversary of Turkey’s 12^th September military coup by showing films examining the impact of military coups in Turkey as well as Portugal, Chile, Brazil, Greece and Argentina, with screenings of Missing, The Year My Parents Went on Vacation, and The Judge And The General, among others.

In addition, a showcase of new Turkish cinema put the spotlight on four productions from the last 12 months: the omnibus film Tales From Kars, Ahmet Boyacioglu’s feature debut Black & White, Ilksen Basarir and Mrt Firat’s controversial Merry-Go-Round, and Belma Bas’s debut Zephyr.

Meanwhile, a programme of fringe events included workshops on production with Leyla Özalp, film analysis with FIPRESCI deputy chairman Alin Tasciyan and acting with actress Derya Alabora (Pandora’s Box) as well as stop motion animation with Dutch animators Niek Castricum and Cindy Beck.

This was the second year in a row that Artvin hosted the Festival of Wheels International Golden Bull Film Competition. It was thanks to the peripatetic festival organized by the Ankara Cinema Association that the town nestling on a steep slope almost 500 metres above the Coruh Gorge now has a cinema.

Last year, the Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar Cultural Centre was modernized with film projection and sound facilities and now provides a regular programme mix of mainstream US, Turkish and European arthouse films for the local residents who enthusiastically took up the offer this past week to see the pick of world cinema and catch a glimpse of Turkish stars such as Settar Tanriögen (When We Leave, Majority), Tarik Akan (Yol) and Erkan Can (Black & White) in the flesh.