Municipality cancels film festival over ‘gender-neutral’ award
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The 10th Malatya International Film Festival announced that it would grant a "gender-neutral" "Best Performance" award rather than two separate "Best Actress" and "Best Actor" award. Malatya Metropolitan Municipality has cancelled the festival over this announcement.
In a statement released about the cancellation, the Municipality has expressed its "sadness" that "some media-press outlets used certain expressions which offended their social values in this process."
Coordinated by Cinema and Audiovisual Culture Foundation of Turkey (TÜRSAK) Chair Elif Dağdeviren, the festival was to be held by the Metropolitan Municipality for the 10th time this year on December 1-5.
Reason: Expression of 'gender-neutral'
As the reason for the cancellation of this year's international film festival, the Malatya Metropolitan Municipality has referred to the expression of "gender-neutral" used in the press release of the festival.
In a statement released by the Metropolitan Municipality before the cancelation, it was also indicated that "the necessary inquiries would be launched against the responsible parties with immediate effect to find out what was meant by the related expression." According to the Municipality, the press release of the film festival was an "unfortunate statement" and the related expression "led to a false perception."
The Metropolitan Municipality of Malatya has then announced that the film festival has been cancelled.
10. Malatya Uluslararası Film Festivali iptal edilmiştir...
— Malatya Büyükşehir Belediyesi (@MalatyaBelTr) November 15, 2020
Kamuoyuna saygıyla duyurulur. pic.twitter.com/GybY2BXuIc
It would be a first in Turkey
In the press release of the 10th Malatya International Film Festival, it was said, "The first Gender-Neutral Performance Award of Turkey will find its owner." The press release then read as follows:
"The 10th Malatya International Film Festival will be a trailblazer in Turkey this year. In a first in the world, the Berlin Film Festival organizers abolished the differentiation between women and men in the Best Performance Award; the 10th Malatya International Film Festival will be its first representative in Turkey. Supporting the decision taken by the Berlin Film Festival and in an attempt to make this change more meaningful and widespread, the festival, removing the gender differentiation in the performance awards, will grant Best Performance and Best Supporting Performance awards in this year's National Feature Film Competition." (AÖ/SD)