Golden Orange Film Festival: Turkey's oldest Film Festival has begun

48th International Golden Orange Film Festival has started with a magnificent ceremony last night at the Glass Pyramid in Antalya Turkey. Important names from the cinema, art and media world attended to the Red Carpet Ceremony.

At the opening cocktail reception prior to the Opening Gala, a ‘Freedom Corner' was opened for imprisoned or banned Iranian directors Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb. The petition letters for their freedom will be posted to the Iranian embassy during the festival.

The Mayor of Antalya City and President of the Board of Directors for the Antalya Culture and Arts Foundation; Prof. Mustafa Akaydın opened the festival with his speech. Mr. Akaydin said', ‘The women in cinema particular, this year's main festival theme is 'And the woman touched the world". We are emphasizing the indispensability of women in the world. We have organized panels, talks, meetings and first Antalya Women's Summit to bring attention to the violence against women and discuss the solutions.

He added; "We have also organized meetings, panels against ‘Child Brides' to stop the arranged forced marriages at the very young ages". Akaydin also mentioned about the 1979 and 1980's ‘Belated Golden Orange Awards. Those year's the festivals were cancelled due to censorship and the military coup.  This year we are clearing up the ‘Black Stain' from festival's history.

Rustem Ibrahimbekov; one of the famous names of Azerbaijani and Soviet Cinema was presented his Honorary Award at the Opening Ceremony. With the director Nikita Mihalkov, Ibragimbekov wrote the script of the film "Burnt by the Sun" which was directed by Nikita Mihalkov and won an Oscar for ‘The Best Foreign Language Film' in 1994. World renowned, singer and actress Jane Birkin also attended to the ceremony to present an Honorary Award.  She gave a concert at the evening.