Turkey’s Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival cancelled amid censorship claims
Over the past few years, several cultural events and showcases have been cancelling Turkey because of the current government’s stance on censorship and upholding the conservative views that got them into power.
Now, the most prestigious film festival in the country, the Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival, has been pulled. The event was initially set to go ahead between October 7th and 14th but will no longer occur.
Following state pressure, the festival’s organisers have had to decide to pull the plug on the event, which was set to be the 60th-anniversary celebration of the festival. The pressure primarily arose over the film Kanun Hukmu.
The film’s title means ‘The Decree’ in English, and its plot saw an exploration of the firings that happened following the failed military coup of 2016 during the state of emergency until June 2018.
In September, the festival organisers removed Kanun Hukmu from the schedule amid alleged pressure from the government, who claimed that one of the characters was still in the middle of legal proceedings, which turned out to be untrue.
Several other directors, producers and writers then withdrew their films from the festival out of solidarity with the director of the documentary, Nejla Demirci.
They said in a joint statement: “We consider the removal of the film… a direct threat to artistic freedom of expression. We firmly believe that it is unacceptable for festivals, which inherently belong to society, to surrender to censorship.”
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