Meetings on the Bridge in Istanbul will be celebrating its 10th anniversary in 2015

Meetings on the Bridge has contributed to the completion of 29 film projects over the past 9 years, holding workshops for the first international presentations of feature-length fiction and documentary projects, and films still in production, and organised panels, master classes, and forums geared towards film professionals.

Numerous projects were supported by the Film Project Development Workshop, the Work in Progress Workshop, and the German-Turkish Co-Production Development Fund within the scope of Meetings on the Bridge, and the support of Anadolu Efes, which has been the Theme Sponsor of the Istanbul Film Festival's “Turkish Cinema” section for 28 years. Meetings on the Bridge, which has raised close to 430.000 Euros for 36 different projects since it began in 2006, will continue developing in its 10th year.

10th Year Developments from Meetings on the Bridge

In its 10th year, Meetings on the Bridge will organise an educational programme for the projects chosen for the Film Development Workshop in order to increase the effectiveness of presentations. In addition to this preliminary preparatory programme, which will be held in March 2015, films that have proved successful in Meetings on the Bridge workshops will be screened at universities free-of-charge. The Meetings on the Bridge screenings, beginning at Istanbul Bilgi University, will continue throughout the year at other universities, including Galatasaray and Kadir Has.

Applications for Meetings on the Bridge Continue

·      The deadline for the Film Development Workshop is extended: The final application date will be 15 January 2015.

The final application deadline for the Film Development Workshop, to be held on 15-16 April 2015, has been extended to Thursday, 15 January 2015. The Film Development Workshop where directors, screenwriters, and producers give the first international presentations for their feature-length fiction or documentary projects, is aimed to create opportunities for finding the necessary support to initiate the production process.

In addition to the preparatory process and presentation technique training provided each year, this year there will be a comprehensive programme for the director, screenwriter, and producers of the projects selected from among the applications, which are open to different genres, such as horror, fantasy, and comedy. Following preliminary preparations, director, producer, and/or screenwriters will be given the chance to meet one-on-one with representatives from international production, distribution, fund, market, and broadcasting corporations.

At the end of the workshop, the Republic of Turkey's Ministry of Tourism and Culture Support Award of 10.000 USD, the Melodika Sound Post-Production Award, the CNC (French National Cinema Centre) Support Award of 10.000 EUR, and the MFI (Mediterranean Film Institute) Screenwriting Workshop Award will all find their recipients following the international jury's evaluation.

·       Applications for the Work in Progress Workshop will continue until 2 March 2015

The deadline to apply to the Work in Progress Workshop, aiming to create opportunities for projects to find the necessary support in order to complete the production process, is
Monday, 2 March. The directors and producers of the films selected for the workshop will hold presentations open only to industry professionals (distributers, festival or fund directors, TV channel representatives) as part of Meetings on the Bridge. At the end of the workshop, films selected by the international jury will be eligible to receive the Anadolu Efes Award of 10.000 USD, the Color-ist Award, to be given for the first time this year for colour and online editing, and the Başka Sinema Award, enabling the screening of the selected film in Başka Sinema theatres and exempt from the virtual print fee.

·      Applications for the German-Turkish Co-Production Fund have begun

Applications for the German-Turkish Co-Production Development Fund, created through the collaboration of Meetings on the Bridge, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, and Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein Film Funds, and with the support of the Republic of Turkey's Ministry of Tourism and Culture, have begun. Aiming to encourage co-productions between the two countries, the German-Turkish Co-Production Development Fund will find its recipients, as part of Meetings on the Bridge, for the fifth time.

The winners of the Meetings on the Bridge workshops and the projects that receive support from the German-Turkish Co-Production Development Fund will be announced at the Meetings on the Bridge reception to be held on Thursday evening, 16 April 2015.

Guidelines and application instructions can be obtained from film.iksv.org/en/meetingsonthebridge.

The 34th Istanbul Film Festival, organised by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV) and sponsored by Akbank the 11th time this year, will be held between 4-19 April 2015.