[Filmfestivalresearch] (no subject)

[Murat Akser]

Hello,

I have an abstract related to both short film festivals an queer/LGBT film
festivals.
I can team up with anyone interested.

best wishes, Murat Akser
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“Rise of The Queer Shorts: Turkish LGBT Festivals and the Short Narrative
Film”
Murat Akser <muratakser at gmail.com>

The first openly gay film festival in Turkey came into being in 2012 with
KuirFest in Ankara. The festival came as a reaction to existing practices
of independent and women’s film festivals that incorporated gay themed
programming. As different type of thematic film festivals emerged queer
film festivals were long seen as a taboo subject n Turkish festival scene.
IF! Istanbul run by a LGBT group consistently kept Rainbow Cinema as the
largest thematic programming. Yet after 10 years the festival never
acknowledged its queer status. FilmMor and Flying Broom Women’s Film
Festival also favored lesbian film programs. The effects of loss of
independent theater space dues to closure of Emek cinema has led to Ankara
into the spotlight as an alternative festival city to İstanbul. By creating
an openly gay film festival and labelling it so KuirFest created an
alternative space for Turkish gay short films. All the festivals previously
mentioned gave voice to international art house LGBT films. KuirFest in
Turkey gave voice to short filmmakers in Turkey. This paper will discuss
the impact of queer programming for Turkish short filmmaking form. Coming
out and living in a Muslim society as a gay person have become the favorite
themes of Turkish LGBT short filmmakers. In addition ‘Ethnic Queerism’ and
transvestite symbolism as new formal qualities in short filmmaking will be
the main subjects of this paper.

Biography:
Murat Akser is an associate professor of cinema and media studies, chair of
new media department and the founding director of the Cinema and Television
MA program at Kadir Has University Istanbul, Turkey. He has his MA in Film
and PhD in communication and culture from York University, Canada. He works
extensively on political economy of film festivals, film genres and has
recently published a book length study of Turkish cinema from Lambert:
Green Pine Resurrected: Film Genre, Parody, and Intertextuality in Turkish
Cinema and edited a volume from Cambridge scholars on Cinema and New Media.

Bibliography:
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Global Cinephilia. Amsterdam: Amsterdam Univ. Press.
Fischer, Alex (2013). Sustainable Projections: Concepts in Film Festival
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Gamson, Joshua (1996). "The organizational shaping of collective identity:
The case of lesbian and gay film festivals in New York." Sociological
Forum. Vol. 11. No. 2. Kluwer Academic Publishers-Plenum Publishers.
Gever, M., Parmar, P., & Greyson, J. (Eds.). (1993). Queer looks:
Perspectives on lesbian and gay film and video. Psychology Press.
Rhyne, R. (2006). The Global Economy of Gay and Lesbian Film Festivals.GLQ:
A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 12(4), 617-619.
Wong, Cindy (2011). Film festivals: culture, people, and power on the
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