The 23^rd Istanbul International Short Film Festival kicked off on Wednesday (23 November). The festival aims at providing a base to make the voices of young directors heard and to promote the short film.

The opening ceremony was held at the Movie Theatre of the French Culture Centre on Thursday. This year, a total of 156 films are being screened between 23 and 30 November.

The tradition to have the opening speech delivered by a different artist every year was also held up for the 2011 festival. This year, director and screenwriter Ümit Ünal talked about "Art of Cinema and Short Film".

This year's program is based on four main categories: Narrative Films, Animation Films, Documentaries and Experimental Films.

Also within the framework of this year's festival, an anthology of German short films will be shown in the section entitled "Soiree Allemande". The short films are chosen from productions screened at the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival held in February 2011. The organizers describe the topics of these films as "sometimes strange, sometimes emotional, sometimes political and sometimes funny".

Just as done in previous years, selected films of "UNIFRANCE" from France, the "Hungarian Film Union" from Hungary, the "Eye Film Institute" from the Netherlands, the "Krakow Film Foundation" from Poland, the "RIFF Roma Independent Film Festival" from Italy, the "Instituto Cervantes" from Spain and the "Goethe Institute" from Germany are being shown this year as well.

The festival comes along with various activities like talks and panel discussions with domestic and foreign filmmakers.

The short films are being screened at the French Culture Centre, the German Culture Centre and the Dutch Chapel. The shows are free of charge.

Click here for further information on the Istanbul International Film Festival. (YY/VK)