We talked to festival director Ezgi Yalınalp about the 10th Accessible Film Festival, which is held this year.
Accessible Film Festival, Turkey’s first and only accessible film festival, continues to meet moviegoers in its 10th year with its physical and online screenings. The Ankara and online program of the festival, which brings together 39 films from world and Turkish cinema accessible to the audience, includes National Feature Film Competition, Short Film Competition, For Children, Auditorium, Kaleidoscope and Them selections. Interviews with the teams of the films competing in the National Feature Film Competition and Short Film Competition in the program can also be followed on the festival’s YouTube channel.
In the 10th anniversary of the Accessible Film Festival, the festival director Ezgi Yalinalp We talked about the past and present of the festival and the future of the concept of accessibility in the field of culture and arts.
Can we get to know you first?
I am one of the founding team of Puruli Culture and Art. Puruli Culture and Arts is an organization that started out in 2013. Basically, we aim to; to organize various activities and projects in order to ensure that culture and art in general, and cinema in particular, are accessible to everyone. Puruli Culture and Art consists of a team that has worked in film festivals before. An institution that launched the Accessible Film Festival in 2013.
Without talking about the 10th anniversary of the festival hea little headnamehewe sneeze; What is the Accessible Film Festival and for what purposes??
Accessible Film Festival emerged from a simple question: “Is it possible to watch movies together?” Before holding this festival, we knew that there were audio-descriptive screenings. But we also knew that these screenings were only for those who could not see. On the other hand, we asked ourselves the question of whether it is possible to have a festival where everyone with or without a disability can watch movies together. We really liked the idea of a festival where everyone can watch movies together. We started our work on it. After drawing the framework of the festival, we created the necessary resources and held the first festival in 2013.
Our aim was to ensure that everyone had equal access to a film festival. A person with orthopedically impaired, visually impaired or hearing impaired should also be able to watch movies under equal conditions with other people. This is really important. Just as an architect has to make it accessible while designing a building, it is also necessary to think about making all components accessible while designing a culture and art event. Unfortunately, we do not live in such a world, but we have shown that this is possible as an idea by organizing this festival for ten years.
