At the 44th Istanbul Film Festival held on 11-22 April 2025, organised by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (IKSV) and sponsored by N Kolay for the second time this year, the Golden Tulip went to Lesson Learned (2024), by the Hungarian director Bálint Szimler. In his first feature about a young teacher’s courageous confrontation with the status quo regarding the necessity of fundamental changes in teaching methods, Szimler successfully utilises improvisational acting, which results in a psychological depth and sincerity in the film.

This year’s festival was rich with excellent films with the theme of artistic creativity in different branches such as cinema, music, painting, and photography. François Truffaut, My Life, A Screenplay (2024), directed by David Teboul, was one of the most outstanding of them. David Teboul and Serge Toubiana deserve great applause for writing such an integrated, solid, and tight screenplay using such diverse material, namely Truffaut’s letters and unpublished writings. Added to that are Caroline Detournay’s superb editing, Grégoire Hetzel’s beautiful music, and the perfect choices of voice we hear in narration, such as that of Isabelle Huppert. The film admirably achieves to transmit the emotional and intellectual world beneath the works of François Truffaut, one of the most significant names in film history. Andres Veiel’s Riefenstahl (2024) does not have such an integrated screenplay and at various points feels slightly incoherent. Yet, it deserves attention for shedding light on the controversial filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, with a keen eye on her psychological motivations in collaborating with the Nazis.

Voyage to the magical realms of music

Max Richter’s Sleep (2019) by Natalie Johns was shown at the festival as a salute to the musician who will play for the first time in Istanbul in July at this year’s Jazz Festival, also organised by IKSV. In her film, Johns traces Richter’s Sleep project, where the audiences are invited to sleep in the overnight concert of about eight hours. What makes Max Richter’s Sleep so unforgettable is the way Johns builds her film on multiple layers: the Sleep project, Max Richter’s approach to music, his life story as regards the sacrifices he made to make the music he believed, his collaboration and relationship with his wife and his creative partner, artist and filmmaker Yulia Mahr. Johns effortlessly delves into each of these layers with stunning depth, with an extraordinary talent in blending the visual and musical elements in her film.

Gary Hustwit’s Eno (2024) about the groundbreaking British musician Brian Eno is not only a brilliant documentary but also an experiment: with the use of a software, in each screening, the film presents different scenes, order, and music; so, it becomes a new film each time. Such an experimental approach is very much in line with Brian Eno’s philosophy of artistic creativity, as he has constantly challenged limits and borders in his works. As Hustwit interviews him throughout the film, each word that comes out of Eno’s mouth is full of wisdom, which could be enough to make this an exquisite film, yet the film has much more than that.

In Vibe Istanbul (2025), Nefise Motlaq and Saeed Nasiri, two Iranian directors living in Istanbul, successfully tell the story of the underground electronic music culture in Istanbul, from its beginning in the 1980s to the present, answering the question why and how it has been such an outstanding and dynamic scene globally. This film should be regarded as an invitation for more documentaries about various youth subcultures, past and present, of Turkey, where a large youth population at the crossroads of East and West has always created unique cultural landscapes and networks.

Monsieur Aznavour (2024) by Mehdi Idir and Grand Corps Malade, received attention not only by the fans of the iconic French-Armenian singer-songwriter, who passed away in 2018, but also a wider audience who enjoyed the opportunity to get acquainted with him; and this intimate and warm portrayal of the musician pleased them all. In her film, Measures for a Funeral (2024), Sofia Bohdanowicz took her audience on a journey with her main character, a young scholar woman, in the footsteps of Kathleen Parlow, one of the most acclaimed female violinists of the early 20th century. Bohdanowicz, a jury member at the festival's short film competition, met the audience in the Q&A following her film.

Photography, conceptual art, ballet

Legendary Magnum photographer Larry Towell also visited the Istanbul Film Festival this year to the great delight of his admirers. Focusing on human rights for four decades, Towell has created an immense archive of the human condition, both at its moments of suffering and of resilience. In the film The Man I Left Behind (2024), which Larry Towell directed with Matthieu Rytz and Hubert Hayaud, we see such moments in Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, Palestine, Afghanistan, and Ukraine through his camera. The film, which took twelve years to make, brilliantly presents the soul of not only Towell’s photography but also his poetry and music, and his outlook on life as a dignified defender of human rights.

Another documentary on the artistic mind worthy of attention at this year’s festival, Whispering Walls (Eylem Kaftan, 2025), invited the audience into the world of renowned Turkish artist Burhan Doğançay, who moved to New York in the 1960s. In this earnest film, Kaftan skilfully connects Doğançay’s times in NYC, this city’s pivotal role in his creativity, the evolution of his artistic outlook, his works’ impact on the development of conceptual art in Turkey, and his groundbreaking work on the concept of urban walls from all around the world. Kaftan also seamlessly places the meaning of the artist’s marriage to Angela Doğançay in his life and in his works, and Angela Doğançay’s projects for making her husband’s works accessible to future generations after his death.

Dreams (2025) by Michel Franco and The Ice Tower (2025) by Lucile Hadzihalilović should be mentioned together with these films, which have art and artist at their centre, even though these two are about fictional characters. Experienced filmmaker Franco, utilising the powerful acting of the leads, tells with great mastery the impossible love story between Fernando, a young Mexican ballet dancer, and Jennifer, an American socialite and philanthropist. Franco deserves praise for so cleverly scrutinizing the issues of class, nationality, and migration as they entangle and form the basis of the power dynamics in a love affair, and how the affair’s unhappy ending means losing everything for the powerless while it changes nothing in the life of the powerful. The second film, The Ice Tower, about an actress playing the title character in a film adaptation of Hans C. Andersen's fairy tale The Snow Queen, fascinated the festival audience with the dreamlike atmosphere Hadzihalilović creates with outstanding talent.

All around the world

Regarding the in-depth portrayals of characters’ inner worlds in the context of love and intimacy, Sex, Love, Dreams trilogy (2024) by the celebrated Norwegian director Dag Johan Haugerud would instantly come to mind. At the festival where he was a guest this year, his trilogy and three other films were shown in a retrospective, seeing these films and listening to Haugerud’s talk greatly pleased the fans of the unique filmmaker.

Watching Guan Hu’s Black Dog (2024) was a particularly moving experience for the audience of Istanbul, where a highly controversial project to move the street dogs into shelters is about to come into force, causing great reaction by animal rights activists, and the majority of city dwellers. Guan Hu once again proves that the story of love and connection between an animal and a human being can always be told in a fresh and unique way. The perfect acting of Eddie Peng comes together with the elaborate visual language of cinematographer Gao Weizhe in this film, which will most likely become a classic over the years.

At this year’s festival, three films from Brazil, Manas (2024) by Marianna Brennand, Motel Destino (2024) by Karim Aïnouz, and The Blue Trail (2025) by Gabriel Mascaro received interest with their unique subject matter, successful directing, and impressive cinematography. The Boy by Zabou Breitman and Florent Vassault (2025) from France, Writing Hawa (2024) by Najiba Noori and Rasul Noori about their mother living in Afghanistan, and Harvest of Light (2024) by Esin Özalp Öztürk about the hardships faced by Kurdish seasonal workers in Turkey came to the fore as well-made documentaries that told their stories with artistic competence and emotional depth. Ayşe (2024) by Necmi Sancak was another successful Turkish film at this year’s festival, worthy of praise for its nuanced delivery of a sensitive topic: a woman’s efforts to carry the load of a brother with Down syndrome together with all the difficulties of working-class life.

As always, thanks and gratitude go to all the members of IKSV and all their dedicated young volunteers for making Istanbul a heaven of cinema every April with their endless enthusiasm and energy.

Volume 29, Issue 3-5 / May 2025 Festival Reports   art in film   documentary   istanbul film festival