Masters of Film Music at the 5th İzmir Film & Music Festival

The 5th İzmir International Film and Music Festival, organized by the Intercultural Arts Association with the support of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and sponsoring organizations, will take place from September 10–15, 2025. Screenings will be held in three halls at İstinyePark Teras Renk Cinema and at the İzmir French Cultural Center, featuring a total of 100 films, 47 of which are feature-length. In the festival’s thematic section, the International Competition will showcase 10 films from 14 countries that focus on music and musicians. The jury, chaired by director-producer Ömer Vargı and including Malak Dahmouni, Olena Yershova, Şenay Lambaoğlu, and Tulio Gagliardo, will award the Best Film, Jury Special Prize, and Best Original Music awards. In addition to these jury-selected awards, an Audience Jury Award will also be presented.

Festival Director Vecdi Sayar stated that they did not find it necessary to separate fiction and documentary works, so this year both types of films are included in the International Competition. The competing films are: Music for a Funeral (Canada), Exile’s Notebook: Misina (Turkey), Savanna and the Mountain (Portugal, Uruguay), Efterklang: Makedonium Band (Denmark, Macedonia), Musicians (France), Kneecap (Ireland, UK), Köln 75 (Germany, Poland, Belgium), Liberato’s Secret (Italy), Mini, Bartok and Rock (Hungary), and Sound Dreams of Istanbul (Turkey-France). The festival poster is once again designed by Nazlı Ongan, and the festival award, the Crystal Flamingo, is designed by Sema Okan Topaç.

The Music of Our Cinema
This year, no National Competition will be held. Instead, in the The Music of Our Cinema section, one film will receive the Best Original Music award and another the Jury Special Prize. The Selection Committee, composed of composer-conductor Serdar Yalçın and critics Asu Maro, Burak Göral, Cumhur Canbazoğlu, and Müge Turan, chose six finalist films: Inpaintings, When Walnut Leaves Turn Yellow, Fidan, Edge of the Night, Son Of A Rich, and While the New Dawn Fades. The Youth Jury will evaluate seven films in the First Films, First Excitement section, featuring productions from 2024–25, and award the Best First Film among: Bitter Coffee, The Great Siege, Derun, One of the Days Hemme Died, The Hope, On The Water Surface, and Dormitory. Another category will honor Television Series Music, with a jury chaired by composer Serdar Kalafatoğlu alongside Ali Can Sekmeç, Oya Doğan, Sina Koloğlu, and Tuğçe Madayanti Şen, awarding Best Series Music and the Jury Special Prize.

Tribute to the Masters
The Honorary Awards of the 5th İzmir Film and Music Festival will go to Derya Köroğlu and Selim Atakan, founders of the band Yeni Türkü, and to renowned French film music composer Philippe Sarde. In the In Their Memories section, films by four of our directors will be screened. The restored copy of Aysel Bataklı Damın Kızı, directed by Muhsin Ertuğrul with music by Cemal Reşit Rey, will be shown. This year, we celebrate the 100th birthday of Atıf Yılmaz with How To Save Asiye, and films by two late master directors, Şerif Gören’s Ten Women and Ali Özgentürk’s Balalayka, will be commemorated. Two masterpieces by Hungarian cinema legend Zoltan Fabri, Merry-Go-Round and Hungarians, will also be screened. Non-competition films in the Music and Life section include Maria, Aznavour, Stelios, and Better Man, as well as two major films making their İzmir premiere: Emmanuel Courcol’s 2025 production Bando and Johan Grimonprez’s A Soundtrack for a Coup. These films will be shown as paid screenings at 21:00 in İstinyePark Teras Renk Cinema.

Animation, Documentary, and Music
This year, the festival will highlight the role of music in animation. Short animation films from Poland, Hungary, and France, as well as children’s animations from Poland and France, are included in the program. The festival’s opening film was prepared by Prof. Dr. Nazlı Eda Noyan, Head of the Animation Department at Bahçeşehir University, who will also present a selection of Turkish animated music videos. Four workshops in documentary and animation, as well as Zeynep Atakan’s Production Challenges and Co-Productions workshop, are part of the program. Detailed information about the films is available on the festival website (www.ifmfest.net.tr) and on the festival’s social media accounts (@ifmfest).