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The Turkish cinematic landscape was shaken last Friday following the announcement of the cancellation of the Altin Portakal (Golden Orange) Festival due to a significant controversy surrounding a documentary about the purges following the attempted coup d’état in 2016.
The mayor of Antalya, the Mediterranean city hosting this annual cinematic event, conveyed his regret in a video statement shared on the social network X. “It is with profound sorrow that I address all film enthusiasts to announce the cancellation of our festival, initially scheduled from October 7 to 14, due to external circumstances,” he stated.
At the epicenter of this turmoil is the documentary titled The Decree. The film chronicles the tragic fate of a doctor and a teacher, both victims of the repression wave that swept Turkey following the coup attempt against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2016.
Despite an initial selection to compete at the festival, the documentary was subsequently removed from the competition, eliciting strong disapproval from the film community. Numerous directors and cinema professionals raised their voices in protest, condemning what they labeled as “censorship.”
In response to this outcry, the festival’s jury members released a poignant statement, “We vehemently reject any efforts to criminalize a film and the trivialization of censorship in our field. We are prepared to relinquish our positions if the film is not reinstated.”
Yielding to the mounting pressure, festival organizers temporarily readmitted The Decree into the competition. However, following allegations from the Ministry of Culture — which branded the film as “propaganda” favoring the preacher Fethullah Gülen, whom Ankara accuses of masterminding the coup attempt — the film was once again excluded, and the ministry withdrew its support for the festival.
The film’s director, Nejla Demirci, stoutly refuted these claims. “Labeling our work as an endorsement of Feto (an acronym used to refer to the Gülenist movement) or as terrorism is patently absurd,” she asserted.
Since its inception in 1964, the Golden Orange Festival has emerged as one of Turkey’s most prestigious cinematic events, often likened to the renowned Cannes Film Festival in France.
As a reminder, the botched coup on July 15, 2016, resulted in extensive purges in Turkey, targeting not only presumed followers of the Gülen movement, but also a broad array of opponents, including Kurdish activists, intellectuals, and journalists.
With AFP