Organised by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV) as part of the Istanbul Film Festival, Meetings on the Bridge (Köprüde Buluşmalar) continues in its 21st year to bring filmmakers from Türkiye together with international film professionals.
The Film Development Platform of the 21st Meetings on the Bridge, with Anadolu Efes as main sponsor, will take place this year on 14, 15 and 16 April.
At the Film Development Platform, feature-length fiction and documentary projects from Türkiye will make their first international presentations and hold one-to-one meetings with international industry professionals. Meetings on the Bridge aims to support international collaborations for the projects selected for the platform.
This year the 103 projects that applied to the Film Development Platform were assessed by the Meetings on the Bridge selection committee – producer Aslı Filiz, producer and sales agent Denis Krupnov, producer Melanie Blocksdorf and festival director Tsveta Dobreva – and nine projects were selected for the platform.
This year’s selection comprises seven fiction projects, four of them directorial feature debuts, and two documentary projects.
Projects selected for the Film Development Platform:
- Ağır Ağır Giden Eller (dir. Dilşad Aladağ, prod. İpek Erden, co-prod. Burak Çevik)
- Apollo Adası (dir. Barış Sarhan, prod. Umut Eğitimci, Barış Sarhan, Tolga Topçu)
- Dante, 0 (dir. Esra Saydam, prod. Alvaro R. Valente, Melis Aker)
- Leviathan (dir. Onur Sefer, prod. Sinem Kanat)
- Liman (dir. Gökhan Bulut, prod. Jozef Erçevik Amado, Deniz Anastasia Keskin)
- Pivot (dir. Melisa Önel, prod. Alara Hamamcıoğlu Bayraktar, co-prod. Konstantina Staurianou)
- Sensiz Kışı Geçiremezdim (dir. İlhan Mahir Kalaylıoğlu, prod. İlhan Mahir Kalaylıoğlu, co-prod. Can Adiloğlu, Şıvan Kayaş)
- Tüccar (dir. Arin İnan Arslan, prod. Arin İnan Arslan, Selda Durna)
- Yerebasan ~ Yeraltı Urfa Hikâyeleri (dir. Letisya Tapan, prod. Letisya Tapan, co-prod. Dilek Aydın)
In March, the teams behind the selected projects will receive comprehensive training from experienced national and international tutors in script development, pitching techniques, preparing a pitch deck, film financing, co-production, AI tools in filmmaking, and festival, distribution and marketing strategies.
The awards to be presented as part of the Film Development Platform will be announced at a later date.
