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Want to know why I would rank 12th Festival of European Films on Wheels (03-26 November 2006) among the best on the 2006 calendar? First of all, though hardly the primary reason, this sprawling festival event ran for four weeks — nearly the entire month of November! — in four major cities, two in Turkey and two just across its eastern borders. Organized by founder-director Ahmet Boyacioglu, and supported by the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism, this year’s Festival on Wheels began its route in Ankara (November 03-09), moved on to Kars (November 10-16) in eastern Turkey, then crossed the border to Tbilisi (November 17-21) in Georgia, and finished its trek in Baku (November 23-26) in Azerbaijan on the Caspian Sea. The Baku segment of the festival was the hardest to arrange, confirmed Boyacioglu.

Why this splurge of European film culture in three countries better described as Eurasian? Maybe because Ahmet Boyacioglu is a drifter too, a programmer who likes being on the road. After studying medicine in Germany, he worked as a practicing surgeon for a decade, first in Germany, then in Turkey. On the side, he practiced his hobby — running a popular film club under the Ankara Cinema Association banner. As fate would have it, Ahmet’s hobby eventually got the better of him. Friends and contacts at the European embassies in the Turkish capital urged him to found the Ankara International Short Film Festival. This, in turn, led to the first European Festival on Wheels twelve years ago. Friends from the Ankara embassies make it a point to join the entourage somewhere along the way.

Another major reason for the festival’s success is the current revival of Turkish cinema, thanks mostly to two acclaimed Turkish directors, Nuri Bilge Ceylan and Zeki Demirkubuz. Ceylan’s Uzak (Distant, 2003) and Iklimler (Climates, 2006), both highlights of the Cannes competition, confirmed him as a master at probing the loneliness of the soul and rightly drew comparison with the cinema of Bresson and Tarkovsky. Demirkubuz’s back-to-back Yazgi (Fate) (Turkey) and Itiraf (Confession) (Turkey) (2002), both hits in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes, marked the beginning of the director’s »Tales of Darkness« cycle, films notable for their restrained moral realism and dissatisfaction with a complacent Turkish society. His latest production, Kader (Destiny), a searing psychological road movie, was premiered out-of-competition in Kars, where the final scenes of this doomed love story was filmed.

It was at his point that I joined the Festival on Wheels in the mountains of eastern Turkey, a short distance from the borders to Armenia and Georgia. The Mayor of Kars, who sponsored the Golden Goose Prize to award the best film in a ten-entry competition, greeted foreign guests at the opening night gala with an expressed desire to entice international film production to Kars. Since excursions had been arranged to nearby archaeological monuments, some guests were seen carrying in their festival bag a copy of Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk’s latest novel Kar (Snow, 2005). A poetic love story set in Kars during the 1990s, Snow also focuses on the religious and political conflicts that are shaping Turkey today as the country seeks membership in the European Union.

The Golden Goose went to a worthy entry. Özer Kizitan’s Takva (A Man’s Fear of God) (Turkey) depicts the agony of a simple man chosen by a money-hungry Sheikh to collect rent owed to the sect. Slowly, his personality changes as he sinks into a despairing depression, for he cannot reconcile his innate fear of God with the ways of the world. Although awarded at Toronto and at the national festival in Antalya, Takva (the term embraces both a fear of God and an abstinence from sin) has yet to be officially released in Turkey. One can understand why, with religious fanaticism currently on the rise in the muslim world. Just as impressive was Reha Erdem’s Bes vakit (Times and Winds), programmed in the »Turkish Cinema 2006« section and praised by critics at Toronto and Rome. A meditative portrait of life in a Turkish village on the Aegean coast, feudal customs are questioned in the harsh treatment handed out by fathers to sons, simply because this is the way it has always been in the past. Erdem’s sure hand with nonprofessionals in this youth film makes him a director to watch in the future. And, as the title hints, Times and Winds is a film that draws its narrative power from metaphors rather than dialogue.

The festival’s sidebars in the 100-page catalogue tipped Ahmet Boyacioglu’s hand as an insightful programmer with a knack for resurrecting forgotten treasures of European cinema. In »A Century with Visconti« you could see his masterpiece Il gattopardo (The Leopard) (Italy, 1963). Alexander Mackendrick’s evergreen The Lady Killers (UK, 1955) was featured in »Best European Comedies.« In »Surrealist Films« there was Luis Buñuel’s controversial La fantôme de la liberté (The Phantom of Liberty) (France, 1974), in which the 75-year-old director hadn’t lost his touch since his attack on the bourgeoisie in L’Age d’or (The Golden Age) (France, 1930). For the series »Carte Blanche à Yuri Norstein« the search for the legendary director’s animation masterpiece Skayka skazok (The Tale of Tales) (USSR, 1978) led the festival staff all the way to the United States to find a presentable print. Last, but not least, Michael Dudok de Wit’s Oscar-awarded cartoon Father and Daughter (Netherlands, 2000), a poignant tale of longing, was booked for »A Selection of Dutch Animation Films for Children.«

Even the festival trailer was a knockout. Ecstatic film fans of all ages ride a reel of film as its unspools high in the wild blue yonder. For more on this year’s remarkable Festival on Wheels, visit www.europeanfilmfestival.com.

Ron Holloway