This year we celebrate the 50th year of our university with pride and joy. In this significant year, our university presents International Eskişehir Film Festival to cinema lovers in another content and extent.

Adopting the approach of taking place in the scientific and artistic productions and educational processes inside the life, enriching and investigating the details in it, Anadolu University has the rightful pride of communicating and sharing the scientific, cultural and artistic products to masses. The reflection of one of the most important applications of this sharing, to culture and art is the “International Eskişehir Film Festival” which is organized by our “Center of Film Appreciation”.

Starting from 2007, Anadolu University International Film Festival has aimed to spread the art of cinema out of the borders of our university, to the whole city and to be the “Film Festival of Eskişehir” unifying with the city. As the only international event on cinema in Eskişehir, International Eskişehir Film Festival keeps moving ahead according to its objectives with not only its screenings, but getting together the exhibitions, panel discussions, post-screening conversations, workshops and various competitions with the fans of cinema, creating new environments for the new creators of Turkish Cinema that they can improve themselves.

As Anadolu University, our intention for the future is to maintain the International Eskişehir Film Festival as an accepted film festival in the international platforms where young filmmakers who ponders on cinema and encouraging the creativity, can display their works. I believe that our university will take necessary responsibilities and keep supporting the art of cinema for achieving this goal. I extend my most sincere regards to the entire team who contributed their efforts in the festival.

Best regards.
Prof. Dr. Fevzi SÜRMELİ
Rector

It’s 1998, the booklet of Cinema Days is only a few pages and there are only eight films in it. It’s just few films but the interest of the audience is so much and so our joy…These are the first seeds of “organizing a film festival in the university”… Our guest of honor is the President of the Istanbul Film Festival Şakir Eczacıbaşı, directors Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Derviş Zaim, Zeki Demirkubuz are here, post-screening conversations are so tasteful… We want to see that festive mood of the film festivals that disperses the love of film, in our city too and we think it’s a cultural necessity… Interest encourages us to keep on… and second, third…just then the tenth year…

How many things can happen in life in ten years; joys, worries, dreams, the things we say “if only” or “fortunately..” One of that “fortunatelies” is Eskişehir Film Festival, since ten years in the own life of its creators, sometimes before everything, sometimes in the negligence of their beloved, always in the middle of other responsibilities, stealing from time…

Who could say that modest screening of eight films would become a film festival that screens hundreds of films with thousands of audience, meets young enthusiasts with the experts, writes and awards the researchers and branches to all of the theaters in the city?..

When we resemble, the ambition, excitement, callowness of the early years with a smile as we look back: Waiting in front of the fax machine with Serhat, when there was no internet, our joy when we achieve to get a film, our supply of posters when we realize that its not distributed enough, film reels that are sent half the amount to another country, the moment we think “everything is over”, the rush of “how will we catch up”…

Those impacts, created by their halo peculiar to the stars, of Türkan Şoray, Fatma Girik, Filiz Akın, Hülya Koçyiğit, Müjde Ar, Şener Şen, Tuncel Kurtiz, Kadir İnanır…Filmgoers that are filling Sinema Anadolu until its steps, warm conversations with directors, actors that continues on the green grass of the campus, directors who says “its not that exhilarated to meet the audience somewhere else” and seeing their films full of people with tears in their eyes, extending box office queues…

There are two things that explains how Cinema Days continuously improved and became a Film Festival that embraces the whole city: The unique team of Anadolu University consisting of students and lecturers, which has been a pioneer in many innovations with its strong institutional identity, from its president to poster designer, usher, photographer, news reporter…

Relieving with his cool appearance in the chaos of film traffic, backbone of the festival, Serhat; winning our approval with the sponsors she finds and her courage, Gizem; taking care of the guests compassionately, Yaprak; with his well Turkish and fastidiousness Hakan; finding the best solutions in the moment of crisis, Hakan Uğurlu; making our foreign guests feel so welcome that they will ask to come again, Nezih; running for short films and missing pieces of the book, Meltem, Sevcan; supporting with their translations, Yasemin, Hatice, Berk, Merve; calmly responding to our “when will we see the poster?” question with further dates, winning our appreciation with his posters and animations in the end, Eren; designing the sweet souvenir objects, Gökçe; our source of moral support, Tamer; making our news, Funda, Hande, Elif, Eren, Zafer; with our belief that she’ll always do “the best”, our most worthy of trust, Nilüfer; with his military discipline in the theater, Hayri; same as him, Candaş, Danyal; and our energetic students who has the potential to play “silent film”(a game that players try to express a phrase, usually film names, to others in silence) after a midnight screening… Festival has been a school for us as well as its audience, we discovered our talents, improved our skills, we learned to produce together…

We would like to express our gratitude to our Rector Prof. Dr. Fevzi Sürmeli, who provided the foundation of ASB, anticipating the organization of the festival, which became a big field of activity, as an independent unit from the faculty, strengthened the institutional structure of the festival for future years…

We loved our festival that we grew under the safety of Anadolu University with care, love, self-sacrifice like our child and we grow, repraduce and thrive with it.

You turned our lives into a cinema dear festival, long live, for many happy ten years….

Prof. Dr. Gülseren GÜÇHAN
President of the Festival