Friday, March 27, 2009    7:00 p.m.
Remis Auditorium, Museum of Fine Arts
465 Huntington Avenue, Boston

The Ceremony for the Boston Turkish Film Festival Award
for Excellence in Turkish Cinema will take place
preceding the screening of the film, "Three Monkeys".

We are proud to present this year our third Boston Turkish Film Festival Award for Excellence in Turkish Cinema to director, filmmaker NURİ BİLGE CEYLAN, in recognition of his contributions to Turkish cinema. We are proud to initiate with this award a first in North America among the Turkish film festivals.

Nuri Bilge Ceylan has become one of the most celebrated Turkish filmmakers of the contemporary cinema in the world and has received numerous awards in esteemed international film festivals, including the Best Director Award with “Three Monkeys” at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival in 2008.

An Award Ceremony will take place preceding the screening of Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s latest film, “Three Monkeys”, on the opening night of  the festival, on Friday, March 27, 2009 at 7:00 p.m.

Director Nuri Bilge CEYLAN

Nuri Bilge Ceylan was born in Istanbul in 1959. He graduated from Bosphorus University with a degree in Engineering. He started to develop an interest in photography at the age of 15 and he started to be involved in filmmaking when he was about 22 years old. After graduating from Bosphorus University, he studied filmmaking for two years in Mimar Sinan University.

Ceylan made his cinema debut with a low-budget but a high-impact short film, Cocoon (Koza, 1995), officially selected for the 48th Cannes International Film Festival. His first feature film, The Small Town (Kasaba, 1997) brought him 18 international awards, including Caligari Prize at the 1998 Berlin Film Festival. Clouds of May (Mayıs Sıkıntısı, 1999) had its world premiere in the 50th Berlin Film Festival in 2000 and won awards at many international competitions. Ceylan’s Distant (Uzak, 2003) was named as one of the best films of the decade by the Guardian. Distant also received the Grand Jury Prize and Best Actor Award at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival. Success of these films were followed by Climates (İklimler, 2006), winning the FIPRESCI Movie Critics’ Award at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival and received international praise by critics and experts.

His most recent film, “Three Monkeys”, brought Ceylan the Best Director Award at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival.

The first North America retrospective of the Films of Nuri Bilge Ceylan was presented by the Boston Turkish Film Festival in 2004.

In his films Nuri Bilge Ceylan usually deals with real human life and characters, existentialism and human alienation. Having started his career as a photographer, he generally makes minimalist movies and his cast consists of amateur actors, mostly members of his family, including his mother and father. An exception to this is “Three Monkeys” which has a cast of professional actors. Compared to Abbas Kiarostami, Robert Bresson and Alan Resnais, Nuri Bilge Ceylan is described as a true auteur.

Nuri Bilge Ceylan is the recipient of the Boston Turkish Film Festival Award for Excellence inTurkish Cinema for 2009.

Filmography:

• Üç Maymun / Three Monkeys (2008)
• İklimler / Climates (2006)
• Uzak / Distant (2002)
• Mayıs Sıkıntısı / Clouds of May (2000)
• Kasaba / Small Town (1998)
• Koza / Cocoon (1995)