The Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival (Turkish: Antalya Altın Portakal Film Festivali), known for a few years from 2015 as Antalya International Film Festival,[1] is a film festival, held annually since 1963 in Antalya, and is the second most important film festival in Turkey. Since 2009, the event, which takes place in the autumn months at the Antalya Cultural Center (Antalya Kültür Merkezi, AKM), has been organised solely by the Antalya Foundation for Culture and Arts (Antalya Kültür Sanat Vakfı, AKSAV) and has included an international section within the main body of the festival.
Cultural activities like concerts and theatre plays, which started to take place in the 1950s at the historical Aspendos Amphitheatre, formed the cornerstone of the Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival of today. These events held in the summer months under the honorary patronage of Avni Tolunay, found ever increasing interest from people and became traditional at the beginning of the 1960s. In 1963, the festivities turned into a film festival with the initiation Avni Tolunay, who became the mayor of Antalya that year. As the logo of the film festival, an orange was chosen as the most important symbol of the region, along with the sea, historical elements, and the Venus statue. The orange becomes not only a figure within the logo but also gives the festival its name.
The 1st Golden Orange Film Festival was held in 1964. Its mission was formulated by Avni Tolunay as to promote the Turkish cinema, to motivate Turkish film producers for high quality works and to help Turkish cinema penetrate the international film platform. The Golden Orange Feature Film Award was called soon the Turkish Oscar following the enthusiasm created in the cinema world with its high performance within a short time. In 1978, the festival went international by incorporating plastic arts for the first time.
Until 1985, the Golden Orange Festival was organized by the patronage of the Municipality of Antalya. That year, the organization was taken over by the newly established Foundation for Culture, Arts and Tourism in Antalya (Antalya Kültür Sanat Turizm Vakfı, AKSAV). From 1985 until 1988, the incorporation of an international music festival called "Akdeniz Akdeniz" ("Mediterranean Mediterranean") added another dimension to the festival. In the years 1989 to 1994, the municipality, tourism companies and the chamber of commerce in Antalya performed the organization of the Golden Orange Film Festival jointly. Finally, the festival became institutional with the establishment of the Foundation of Golden Orange Culture and Arts Foundation. The institution serves under the name Antalya Culture and Arts Foundation (Antalya Kültür Sanat Vakfı) since September 2002.
From 2005 to 2008 it was jointly organized with Turkish Foundation of Cinema and Audio-visual Culture (TURSAK) and was accompanied by the International Eurasia Film Festival: the 1st International Eurasia Film Festival; 2nd International Eurasia Film Festival; 3rd International Eurasia Film Festival; and the final 4th International Eurasia Film Festival.
The festival was cancelled on September 29, 2023, due to intense government pressure.[2]
The international jury of the festival is formed by nine personalities from the world of cinema and culture, who may not be directly associated with the production or exploitation of a film in competition. A jury of seven professional cinema experts in each of the three film categories advise the main jury.[3]
The Golden Orange awards are given in three film categories. The statuette used before 2005 has been reinstated as of 2009.[4]
Money prizes are given in major categories and a Golden Orange statuette is awarded in addition in all of the following categories:
The festival starts with a parade in the city of Antalya in the evening of the first day. The opening ceremony takes place at the Konyaaltı Amphitheatre or in Antalya Cultural Center in presence of national and international film celebrities invited. At this ceremony, honorary awards are presented to cinema people for their contribution.[5]
The award ceremony takes place in the closing night at the historical Aspendos Amphitheatre, which holds around 7,000 people. In case of bad weather conditions, the award ceremony is transferred to the Glass Pyramid Sabancı Congress and Exhibition Center, which provides seating for an audience of 2,500 only.[6]
During the 51st Golden Orange Festival in 2014, which was organized by Justice and Development Party (Turkey)'s municipality, when The Lamb directed by Kutluğ Ataman swept the board, Reyan Tuvi's feature-length documentary on the 2013-2014 Gezi protests, titled Yeryüzü Aşkın Yüzü Oluncaya Dek (Until The Earth's Face Becomes Love's Face), was removed from the festival with the claim that the documentary violated articles 125[7] and 299[8] of the Turkish Penal Code.[9]
As an initial response, the jury of the Festival released a press statement protesting the decision. In the statement, the jury called out the action as a censorship effort by the administration and stated that the festival administration refused to reinstate the documentary despite their written protests.[10] [11] [12]
On October 5, 2014, the chair of the Festival jury informed the press of his decision to resign from the jury for ethical reasons.[13] In the following day, 10 more jury members resigned from the Festival, informing the press that they are in solidarity with Reyan Tuvi, that they respect his right to an audience, that they protest the Festival administration's behavior of taking on the role of the judiciary branch, and that they are concerned about the administration's attempts to normalize censorship.[14] [15]
Again on October 5, Reyhan Tuvi tweeted that, because she decided to "remove a specific curseword from the English captions"[16] (but not from the Turkish audio), the documentary will now be shown in the Festival as it was shown to audiences in Istanbul and elsewhere.