We are proud to present this year our fifth Boston Turkish Film Festival Award for Excellence in Turkish Cinema to auteur, director DERVİŞ ZAİM, in recognition of his contributions to Turkish cinema.

An Award Ceremony will take place preceding the screening of Derviş Zaim’s film, “Waiting for Heaven” (Cenneti Beklerken) on Friday, March 25, 2011 at 7:00 p.m. A Q&A session with the director follow the film screening.

Thursday, March 25, 2010    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, "Pandora's Box"

Director DERVİŞ ZAİM

Derviş Zaim was educated at Namık Kemal Lyceé and graduated in Business Administration from Boğaziçi University in 1988. He attended a course in independent film production in London and made an experimental video, Hang the Camera (1991). He subsequently wrote, produced and directed numerous television programs starting with the documentary Rock around the Mosque (1993). He completed his masters degree in Cultural Studies at the University of Warwick in 1994. His first novel, Ares in Wonderland (1995), won the prestigious Yunus Nadi literary prize in Turkey.

Somersault in a Coffin (Tabutta Rövöşata, 1996) was his debut as director and screenwriter, which won awards at film festivals in Antalya, Montpellier, San Francisco, Thessalonika and Torino. It was followed by Elephants and Grass (Filler ve Çimen, 2000), which won awards at film festivals in Antalya and Istanbul, and Mud (Çamur, 2003), the winner of  the UNESCO Award at the Venice Film Festival.

Derviş Zaim co-directed the documentary Parallel Trips (2004) with Panicos Chrysanthou, in which the two directors, from opposite sides of the divided island of Cyprus, recorded the human dramas that unfolded during the war of 1974 and the legacy that remains today. He later produced the Greek Cypriot director's fictional feature debut Akamas (2006) about a love affair between a Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot.

Zaim made a trilogy of films, themed around traditional Turkish arts, consisting of Waiting for Heaven (Cenneti Beklerken, 2006), which was nominated for the Golden Tulip at the Istanbul International Film Festival, Dot (Nokta, 2008), which won awards at film festivals in Antalya and Istanbul, and Shadows and Faces (2010), which won the Turkish Film Critics Association Award at the 47th International Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival.

Derviş Zaim also teaches at Bilgi University and Boğaziçi University.