Kundura Sinema, which opened its doors at Beykoz Kundura, one of Türkiye’s industrial cultural heritage sites, is celebrating the October 27 UNESCO World Day for Audiovisual Heritage with a special screening of “The Brilliant Biograph,” presented on its online platform. The program sheds light on everyday life in Europe between 1897 and 1902, with music composed by the Dutch composer and pianist Daan van den Hurk.

In line with this year’s theme for the UNESCO World Day for Audiovisual Heritage, “Your Window to the World,” Kundura Sinema invites audiences to rediscover the Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam and London of the 1900s with a special screening of “The Brilliant Biograph,” which features some of Europe’s very first recorded films. Restored from the Mutoscope and Biograph collections by Eye Film, the National Film Archive of the Netherlands, and the British Film Institute (BFI) using 8K digital scanning technology, with the support of the European Commission, this special screening brings recordings from the earliest days of cinema, images with some of the richest detail in film history, to Kundura Sinema’s followers from today until the end of the year.

October 27, UNESCO World Day for Audiovisual Heritage

Celebrated with conferences and film screenings by the world’s leading national film and media archives, the October 27 UNESCO World Day for Audiovisual Heritage aims each year to open a dialogue on cultural heritage among institutions around a particular theme. Audiovisual documents, from film, radio and television programs to many other kinds of records, contribute to cultural heritage by bringing different nations together on common ground. Aiming to raise public awareness of the need to preserve and rediscover these archives at risk of disappearing, this special day also underlines their importance in safeguarding cultural heritage. Beykoz Kundura, one of Türkiye’s most important industrial cultural heritage sites, invites its followers to celebrate this special day with the special screening of “The Brilliant Biograph,” available to stream free of charge from October 27 on its online platform www.kultur.beykozkundura.com, and with a blog post on the subject written by Buse Yıldırım, Director of Arts and Culture at Beykoz Kundura.

Elif Rongen Kaynakçı, silent film specialist at the Eye Filmmuseum in the Netherlands, commented on the preparation of the “The Brilliant Biograph” screening: “The musical accompaniment for these very short and unrelated films of varying content and rhythm would present a big challenge to any improvising musician. Hence, a special piano score was commissioned, composed and recorded by Daan van den Hurk. His score holds the compilation together, flowing along its structure while also recognizing the intrinsic value of each individual film.”

Beykoz Kundura’s new digital platform and blog, www.beykozkundura.com, which makes its content accessible from anywhere, will host online film screenings as well as pieces written about Kundura Sinema and Kundura Sahne, articles on the culture industry, and interviews with leading figures in the sector.