Istancool Festival 2011 Highlights

After the success of the inaugural Istancool Festival in 2010, AnOther Magazine partnered with Liberatum and Istanbul ’74 for the second chapter of the festival, taking place in Istanbul last weekend.

Istanbul is a city of endless fascination. A sprawling modern metropolis where the ancient call to prayer still resounds at dusk and myths swirl between the mosques and palaces and through the cisterns that lie deep under the city. The premise for Istancool is to create an eclectic programme, featuring exchanges between leading cultural figures from across the world. This year's festival opened with a private view of Being with You, a series of portraits over skype by the artist Sandro Kopp, featuring artists, friends and collaborators from across the world including Istancool 2011 attendees Tilda Swinton, Ryan McGinley and Haider Ackermann.

The first day took place at Vakko headquarters and began with a talk by renowned screenwriter, animator and director Terry Gilliam. This was followed by a panel discussion between Venice Film Festival Director Marco Mueller, Cannes best actress winner Kirsten Dunst and Turkish actress Nugul Yesilcay who considered what contemporary cinema tells us about the world today. Meanwhile, Haider Ackermann led a workshop for a group of local fashion students. Turkish actress Serra Yilmaz joined Tilda Swinton on stage for a Q&A before presenting Io Sono Amore, Luca Gudagnino’s I am Love.

The beautiful Pera Museum was the venue for Saturday’s programme beginning with a presentation by Michael Stipe of his new project Collapse Into Now. Stipe had given carte blanche to twelve of his favourite artists, including Sophie Calle and Sam Taylor-Wood who joined him on the panel, to make a video to accompany each track on the new REM album of the same name. Calle explained that her film had been made up of footage previously taken on her phone and then edited together for the song. Taylor-Wood spoke about her Gonzo style, shooting Aaron Johnson dancing through the streets of London.  Istancool also premiered two films: James Franco’s That Someone is You and Marlon Brando, cut from previously unseen archive footage of Brando by legendary documentary maker Albert Maysles. This was followed by a talk between New York artists and longstanding friends Dan Colen and Ryan McGinley who spoke about growing up together, their feelings of being orphaned by the previous generation of artists and their works genesis in skate sub culture. Later Sam Taylor-Wood spoke about the profound influence and mentorship that Anthony Minghella had given her before presenting his magnum opus The English Patient.

The final day of the programme took place at Tophane-I Amire, an ancient building recently restored as a cultural and arts centre. French artist Sophie Calle opened the day speaking about her connection to Istanbul where she had lived for a month last year as well as her current project with poverty-stricken youngsters who live in the suburbs of Istanbul. After a talk by esteemed Turkish film director Reha Erdem, rock icon Courtney Love spoke about the artist versus the brand. Istancool joined Amnesty for the last talk of the day entitled Voices of Hope to celebrate their 50th anniversary and draw attention to their campaign for freedom of expression. “People around the world are sentenced for expressing their thoughts peacefully” said Amnesty Turkey director Mine Hanyali, “We demand that authors, poets, artists, anyone at all should not be punished for expressing their thoughts.” In the evening, guests took a sunset boat trip down the Bosphorous to dinner. “The boat at dusk on the Bosphorous was stunning and so inspiring; it felt like time had stopped and realigned itself” said Michael Stipe. It was the perfect moment of reflection on an inspiring and engaging weekend.

Text by Caroline Lever