Istancool, also known as the Istanbul International Arts & Culture Festival and IST. Festival, is an annual international cultural celebration in Istanbul, created by Liberatum and first held in 2010 to celebrate the city's 2010 European Capital of Culture status.
The festival was created and founded by the famed creative director Pablo Ganguli. [1] Film director Alphan Eşeli and his wife Demet Muftuoglu, and Dazed & Confused editor Jefferson Hack were producers. [2] [3] Ganguli described the aims as "to bring both local and international creative minds to Turkish audiences for a programme that does not understand citizenship, passport, themes, race, gender or visa". [4] It was the first venture of Liberatum in Turkey. Istancool was sponsored by the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Güler Sabancı, W Istanbul and Vakko. Guests have included global creative icons V. S. Naipaul, Zaha Hadid, Terence Koh, Haluk Akakçe, Gareth Pugh, [5] Lily Cole, [6] Tilda Swinton, Kirsten Dunst, Sophie Calle, Reha Erdem, Serra Yilmaz, Courtney Love, Terry Gilliam, Michael Stipe, [3] Gore Vidal, Daphne Guinness, Philip Treacy, Michael Nyman, Hanif Kureishi and Stephen Frears.
The festival took place for the fourth time in June 2014. [7] [8]
Sarajevo is the capital and largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a population of 275,524 in its administrative limits. The Sarajevo metropolitan area including Sarajevo Canton, East Sarajevo and nearby municipalities is home to 555,210 inhabitants. Located within the greater Sarajevo valley of Bosnia, it is surrounded by the Dinaric Alps and situated along the Miljacka River in the heart of the Balkans, a region of Southern Europe.
The culture of Turkey combines a heavily diverse and heterogeneous set of elements that have been derived from the various cultures of the Eastern Mediterranean, Eastern Europe, Caucasia, Middle East and Central Asia traditions. Many of these traditions were initially brought together by the Ottoman Empire, a multi-ethnic and multi-religious state.
Fatih Akin is a German film director, screenwriter and producer of Turkish descent. He has won numerous awards for his films, including the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival for his film Head-On (2004), Best Screenplay at the Cannes Film Festival for his film The Edge of Heaven (2007), and the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film for his film In the Fade (2017).
Tourism in Turkey is focused largely on a variety of historical sites, and on seaside resorts along its Aegean and Mediterranean Sea coasts. Turkey has also become a popular destination for culture, spa, and health care.
The Istanbul International Music Festival, formerly Istanbul Festival, is a cultural event held every June and July in Istanbul, Turkey. It offers a selection of European classical music, ballet, opera and traditional music performances with the participations of famous artists from all over the world. The festival was first held in 1973 and is organized by the Istanbul Foundation of Culture and Arts. In 2006, Borusan Holding took over its main sponsorship from Eczacıbaşı Holding.
Istanbul, formerly known as Constantinople, is the largest city in Turkey, serving as the country's economic, cultural and historic hub. The city straddles the Bosporus strait, lying in both Europe and Asia, and has a population of over 15 million residents, comprising 19% of the population of Turkey. Istanbul is the most populous European city, and the world's 15th-largest city.
The Istanbul Archaeology Museums are a group of three archaeological museums located in the Eminönü quarter of Istanbul, Turkey, near Gülhane Park and Topkapı Palace.
Pablo Ganguli is an entrepreneur, artist, producer, director and impresario who has created and directed several international festivals, movements and summits of arts, literature, media, film, fashion and culture, through his organisation Liberatum.
The State Opera and Ballet is the national directorate of opera and ballet companies of Turkey, with venues in Ankara, İstanbul, İzmir, Mersin, Antalya and Samsun. The directorate is bound to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. As of January 2018, Murat Karahan is the General Director.
Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in Southeast Europe. It shares borders with the Black Sea to the north; Georgia to the northeast; Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Iran to the east; Iraq to the southeast; Syria and the Mediterranean Sea to the south; the Aegean Sea to the west; and Greece and Bulgaria to the northwest. Cyprus is located off the south coast. Turks form the vast majority of the nation's population and Kurds are the largest minority. Ankara is Turkey's capital, while Istanbul is its largest city and financial centre.
Liberatum is an international cultural diplomacy organisation, multimedia and cultural content company founded by Pablo Ganguli in 2001. It creates and presents multidisciplinary artistic platforms and promotes contemporary arts, film, media, literature and culture worldwide through its own festivals, films, summits and other programming. Liberatum champions human rights, freedom of expression and women in creativity through its platforms across the world.
Demet Müftüoğlu Eşeli is a Curator, Creative Director and the co-founder of ISTANBUL’74. Since 2010, she has been the Creative Head of Istanbul International Arts & Culture Festival which she co-founded with Alphan Eşeli.
There are approximately 12,000 Australians in Turkey. Of these, the overwhelming majority are in the capital Ankara, and the remainder are mostly in Istanbul. Australian expatriates in Turkey form one of the largest overseas Australian groups in Europe and Asia. The vast majority of Australian nationals in Turkey are Turkish Australians.
The Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts of Ghana is the government ministry responsible for the development and promotion of tourism-related activities in the country.
Alphan Eseli(Turkish: [Alphan Eşeli]); born March 7, 1973, is a Turkish film director, screenwriter, producer, and photographer. Eseli's critically acclaimed first feature film The Long Way Home (2013) has won the Fipresci Prize and the Golden Zenith Award at the 37th Montreal World Film Festival as well as the Best New Talent Award at the 7th Hong Kong Asian Film Festival.
Şerif Yenen is a travel specialist, tour guide, travel writer, film-maker, international keynote speaker and lecturer. He wrote Turkish Odyssey in English, the “first guidebook of Turkey ever written by a Turk”.
Homotopia is an international LGBTQ+ arts festival held annually in Liverpool, England. The festival takes place in late-October and throughout November every year and features a mixture of theatre, dance, film, photography, art, cabaret and debate at numerous venues across Liverpool.
The culture of Istanbul has its basis in the city that has been the capital of the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires. However, when the Turkish Republic turned its focus away from Istanbul and toward Ankara, the city's cultural scene throughout the mid-20th century lay relatively stagnant, seeing limited success on the international, and even national, level. The government of the new republic established programs that served to engender Turks toward musical traditions, especially those originating in Europe, but musical institutions and visits by foreign classical artists were primarily centered in the new capital. Although much of Turkey's culture had its roots in Istanbul, it was not until the 1980s and 1990s that Istanbul reemerged globally as a city whose cultural significance is not solely based on its past glory.
Kawai Wong is a magazine editor, writer and fashion stylist. She started her Hong Kong journalism career with Time Out Hong Kong in 2010 and went on to edit the Shopping & Style section. Wong helped to re-invent the section by adding new regular fixtures such as Things We Love About... and Style Agenda. Her notable works include a one-on-one interview with Tom Ford in 2011 and a six-hour interview with the "King of Asian Pop" Eason Chan in 2012. Wong also contributed to the official website of Hong Kong Tourism Board and translated articles for the arts webzine City Reborn. She had worked with Sasha Slater at London Evening Standard and Hilary Alexander at The Daily Telegraph. Wanderlister+ dubbed Wong a "tough as nail interviewer" in 2012.
Gorgun Taner is the general director of the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV), a non-profit, non-governmental organisation founded in 1973 that organises four international festivals, the Istanbul Biennial, and the Istanbul Design Biennial. He has been working at the foundation since 1983 and served as assistant director and program poordinator for foreign relations (1987–1994) and director of the International Istanbul Jazz Festival (1994–2002) before being appointed as general director in 2002.