At Beykoz Kundura, 2023 was a year packed with plays, dance, music and film. Here is a look back at everything that happened at Kundura Sahne and Kundura Sinema over the course of the year… 

“GEÇEN GÜN” ON STAGE

GEÇEN GÜN, a Kundura Sahne production, premiered on December 8. Co-directed by Naz Erayda and Kerem Kurdoğlu, the play was greeted with warm applause from the audience.

KUNDURA SİNEMA TURNED 5

Beykoz Kundura’s cinema, Kundura Sinema, enchanting with its restoration, celebrated its 5th anniversary this year with restored classics. First opening its doors in 2018 and becoming one of Istanbul’s most beloved movie theaters thanks to its original content and curated programs, Kundura Sinema brought together a special selection of films from its first-year program. In the program titled “The Memory of Kundura Sinema”, a rich and colorful selection of films spanning the 1940s to the 2010s met Istanbul audiences in restored prints. >>>WATCH

KUNDURA SAHNE HOSTED INTERNATIONAL PRODUCTIONS

Kundura Sahne continued to bring the most talked-about projects from international stages to Istanbul’s theatergoers.

“Conference of the Absent” by the art collective Rimini Protokoll, which has sparked debate on stages around the world with award-winning projects that push the boundaries of theater through technology, came to Kundura Sahne for its Türkiye premiere on March 31. >>>WATCH

Swiss director, artist and curator Stefan Kaegi, who was in Türkiye for the performance of “Conference of the Absent”, also led a workshop at Beykoz Kundura, sharing with participants the digital applications he developed for the performance and innovative formats designed for the ‘participating audience’. >>>WATCH

Hailed as the new inventors of documentary theater, Brussels-based artists Silke Huysmans and Hannes Dereere brought their performance “Pleasant Island” (Cennet Ada), performed without speaking a single word and entirely through a smartphone, to Kundura Sahne on May 10 for its first and only showing in Türkiye. >>>WATCH

“Never Odd Or Even”, which brings together on the same stage Filiz Sızanlı and Mustafa Kaplan, whom we know well from Taldans, the company they founded in 2003, and the Portuguese artist duo Sofia Dias and Vítor Roriz, who have been working together since 2006, had its Türkiye premiere at Kundura Sahne on the evening of Friday, November 3. >>>WATCH

A SUMMER NIGHT FESTIVAL FOR THE 7TH TIME

A Summer Night Festival brought film and music together on the shores of the Bosphorus for the seventh time.

Inviting audiences to a unique viewing experience on the shores of the Bosphorus and under the stars, A Summer Night Festival treated Istanbulites to open-air film and music for 9 days in August. This year, the festival’s Restored Classics program, inspired by the union of film and music, focused on the Oscar- and Grammy-winning Italian composer Nino Rota, bringing back to audiences, in restored prints, the classics he scored: “La Dolce Vita” (1960), “8½” (1963), “Purple Noon” (Plein Soleil, 1960), “The Godfather” (1972) and “The Godfather Part II” (1974). In the Silent Film with Live Music program, which welcomed master musicians in front of the screen, circus-themed films from 100 years ago were shown, accompanied by the live performances of Frank Bockius from Germany and Korhan Futacı, Islandman and Okay Temiz from Türkiye.

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One of this year’s guests at A Summer Night Festival was the German silent film virtuoso and percussionist Frank Bockius. One of the leading accompanists in the world of silent film, the artist led a workshop as part of the festival, teaching musicians from Türkiye the finer points of making music for silent film. The musicians who took part in the workshop, aimed at young musicians interested in silent cinema and jazz professionals skilled in improvisation techniques, also performed alongside Frank Bockius to accompany the “Circus Films” screening at the festival. 

KUNDURA DOCLAB LAUNCHED

Kundura DocLab welcomed documentary film and theater directors in its first edition. Launched under the umbrella of KunduraLab, the laboratory program Beykoz Kundura founded in 2021 to create opportunities for discussion and production across different disciplines, Kundura DocLab brought together the practices of cinema and theater, offering participants the chance to carry out joint research for a week with a contemporary, interdisciplinary approach.

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THE MONTH OF EUROPEAN FILM WAS CELEBRATED AT KUNDURA SİNEMA

In Türkiye, the traditional Month of European Film celebrations took place this year at Kundura Sinema. In the Month of European Film program, which we organized in partnership with the European Film Academy and Creative Europe Media and with the support of the Institut Français İstanbul, 5 films from among the unforgettable works of French cinema were screened.

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A LEGENDARY ALBUM CAME ALIVE AT KUNDURA SAHNE

Kundura Sahne hosted a special launch concert for the vinyl release of “The ORTF Recordings PARIS 1971”, one of the most important albums in jazz history. Regarded as one of the most successful records by the Don Cherry Trio, made up of American jazz musician Don Cherry, master percussionist Okay Temiz and South African bassist Johnny Dyani, and recorded in 1971 at the famous ORTF studios in Paris, the album’s tracks came to life once again, this time through the music project Okay Temiz plays Don Cherry . With Okay Temiz on drums, Harald Svensson on piano, Ozan Musluoğlu on bass, Tomi Temiz on keyboards and Can Ömer Uygan on trumpet, the group brought to life in Istanbul, 52 years later, the album that was pressed in a limited edition in October on the Caz Plak label and quickly sold out.  

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WE CELEBRATED INTERNATIONAL DANCE DAY, INSPIRED BY PINA BAUSCH

Beykoz Kundura celebrated International Dance Day on April 29 with a film and talk program titled “For the Love of Dance: Pina Bausch” , paying tribute to the legendary dancer and choreographer Pina Bausch, whom we lost 14 years ago. As part of the program, prepared in partnership by Kundura Sahne and Kundura Sinema, audiences saw the films “One Day Pina Asked…” , directed by Chantal Akerman in 1983, and the 2022 German production “Dancing Pina”.

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The program also included a talk titled “Understanding and Narrating Pina” at Kundura Sinema. Moderated by film writer Ekrem Buğra Büte, the talk featured dance artist and choreographer Leyla Postalcıoğlu and film writer and curator Müge Turan, and together we discussed the magic of Pina Bausch on screen and on stage.

One of the program’s surprises was bringing to life, with all the participants on the waterfront of Beykoz Kundura, the Nelken Line, the dance sequence that is as famous as Pina Bausch herself.

KUNDURA DOMESTIC GOODS WEEK

The final event of the year, Domestic Goods Week at Kundura, brought together masterful and creative names from the local stage in performances and talks. Inspired by the memory of the Sümerbank Leather and Shoe Industry Institution, which became the foremost symbol of industrialization and domestic production in the history of the Republic, the Domestic Goods Week at Kundura program focused this year on local theater and performance productions. The program, which featured an open rehearsal of the project Filiz Sızanlı and Mustafa Kaplan developed at Beykoz Kundura, also included a talk titled “Local Content, New Form”, looking at local stage productions from past to present. Moderated by Ayşe Draz and Özlem Hemiş, the talk featured speakers Dikmen Gürün, Filiz Sızanlı, Gülhan Kadim, Kerem Kurdoğlu, Melih Kıraç, Mustafa Kaplan, Naz Erayda and S. Buse Yıldırım. 

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