KUNDURA CINEMA UNVEILS THE FILM PROGRAM: GET READY TO A JOURNEY TO ALL CORNERS OF THE WORLD
The first season of the screenings at Kundura Cinema kicks off tomorrow (17 November 2018) with Jules Dassin’s The Naked City. The cinematic legacy of the factory will be revived with curated screenings and parallel activities. First annual film selection of Kundura Cinema will focus on films traveling around cities, taking audiences on a journey to all corners of the world.
Tickets will be on sale as of today, to see the updated film programme and purchase tickets please follow Kundura Cinema’s social media accounts and the website.
In its heyday, Beykoz Kunduraheld regular film screenings and the factory’s cinema programme provided an important cultural experience to the daily lives of its workers.
Now, The Boiler Room, which formed the heart of the factory complex, has been restored for the Kundura Cinemaproject to serve as one of the newest, and yet most historic, cultural platforms in Istanbul.
Kundura Cinema’s first annual film selection will focus on films traveling around cities, taking audiences on a journey to all corners of the world, from the first modern cities to the present, from huge metropolises to dystopian cities of the future, from New York to Paris, from Berlin to Mexico, from Tokyo to Istanbul… The programme will include masterpieces never previously screened in Turkey, with titles selected from diverse cinematic genres ranging from narrative to experimental, drama to comedy and film noir to science fiction, investigating the soul, rhythm and the light of cities, and the people that inhabit them.
Kundura Cinema premiers with the first ever restorated screening of Jules Dassin’s The Naked City. Produced in 1948, Jules Dassin’s The Naked City was restored for its 70th year anniversary at the 75th Venice International Film Festival. The Naked City centers on a murder investigation and it is a masterpiece beyond time, most of which is shot outdoors and filled with everyday life details with unique New York images. Focusing on the films traveling around cities the programme includes another film of Jules Dassin, 1950 produced Night and The City. This time viewers will wonder the streets of London. Dassin turns the city into a character by his breathtaking directing while he deepens the portrait of the “loser man” and his melancholic story with the use of light and space.
Another restorated film from the programme is a 1960 American romantic comedy-drama film The Apartment produced and directed by Billy Wilder.
The Apartment will be screened in Turkey for the first time at Kundura Cinema right after the screening at the 71st Festival de Cannes in the Cannes Classics. Set in the New York city around New Year’s time, American morality and lifestyle is satirized with severe critiques of capitalism in this well-written romantic comedy.
The programme includes Playtime by Jacque Tati which was realised in nearly ten years in 1967. Playtime observes the people lost in the ultra-modern version of Paris through its narrative based on different places and coincidental events.
Walter Ruttmann's masterpiece Berlin: Symphony of a Great City from 1927, is also included in the programme. Documenting an ordinary day in Berlin the film displays the relationship between people and spaces and the rhythm of the city that operates as a machine with an impressive film editing. The film will be screened with live musical accompaniment by Gonca Feride Varoland Armağan Koçak.
Another Jacques Tati film included in the programme is 1971 dated Trafic. Mr. Hulot hits the road with a team in order to take his cool-looking but nonfunctional automobile designed by himself to an auto show in Amsterdam.
After privatization in 2005, the facility was owned by Yıldırım Holding and named Beykoz Kundura. In the twelve years that followed, due to its well-preserved historical setting, the site has served as a film set and as a host to events and gatherings. The Boiler Room restoration project is being delivered by Beykoz Kundura’s local architecture team in collaboration with the Dutch firms Theater Advies, with TenBras in an advisory capacity. In addition to Kundura Cinema, the Boiler Room project will also include Kundura Stage, due to open in late 2019. Another project run by Yıldırım Holding within Beykoz Kundura is Kundura Memory. It includes an Oral History Project, aiming to celebrate and support the cultural heritage of the factory, transforming the site into a unique cultural destination in Istanbul.
Buse Yıldırım, Director of Arts and Culture said, “This old shoe factory has turned into a factory of story and film and has become an important centre of creative economy. In Turkey, Kundura Cinema is the first example of an industrial cultural heritage that has turned into a cinema theatre. Our aim is to present a selection of films from different genres, times and countries and to inspire dialogue as well as showing the constantly change in the cinematic storytelling and esthetics.
