Eytan Ipeker’s Documentary ‘The Pageant’ at Istanbul Film Festival

The documentary ‘The Pageant’ directed by Eytan Ipeker and produced by Yoel Meranda, has been shown during the Istanbul Film Festival on October 11-12. The documentary will also be able to be watched online via the festival website. The 83 minutes film is a Turkey, France, Israel, and Germany co-production.

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October 16, 2020

´The Pageant´

‘The Pageant’ making its world premiere in one of the most important documentary festivals in Europe, Visions du Réel Film Festival, was then shown in international film festivals like Sarajevo and Odesa. The Turkey premiere was at Antalya Film Festival on October 6^th.

‘The Pageant’ is about a beauty contest taking place in Haifa since 2011, among the female survivors of the Nazi Holocaust. This flashy event where contestants around 80 years old, walk on the red carpet and try to fancy themselves to the jury, is sponsored by an international organization supporting the policies of the right-wing government in Israel.

Eytan Ipeker, telling the story of Sophie Leibowitz who had participated in this contest in 2016, is questioning how the collective memory can expire and turn into a political spectacle.

The tickets for the online screening of ‘The Pageant’ can be obtained from the festival website below;

https://film.iksv.org/en/the-39th-istanbul-film-festival-2020/the-pageant

Yoel Meranda & Eytan Ipeker

Yoel Meranda & Eytan Ipeker

Two more documentaries edited by Eytan Ipeker are also being shown at the Istanbul Film Festival. The Antalya Film Festival Special Jury Prize winner document, ‘Mimaroğlu: The Robinson of Manhattan Island is telling the life story of the legendary electronic music composer Ilhan Mimaroğlu. The documentary ‘Invisible to the Eye (Ah Gözel Istanbul)’ which was inspired by the 17th century Armenian intellectual Eremya Çelebi Kömürciyan’s travel diaries, is also meeting the audience in the Istanbul Film Festival.

Eytan Ipeker, born in Istanbul in 1981, studied at the New York University. His experimental short films were screened at festivals such as Toronto, Edinburgh, Istanbul, !f Istanbul, and Antalya. Following the short films ‘Dantelacı (Embroidery Maker)’ (2005) sponsored by Şalom newspaper, and ‘Unmade Bed’ (2015), and the documentary ‘Idil Biret: The Portrait of a Childhood Prodigy’ (2015), his first feature film was ‘The Pageant’.

The experimental videos of Yoel Meranda, who was born in Istanbul in 1981, were featured in Toronto, Edinburgh, and Thessaloniki international film festivals, and his video installations were featured in institutions such as the New York White Box Gallery, Basilica Cistern, Goethe-Institut, and Pera Museum.

In 2011, Yoel Meranda founded Kamara production company with Can Eskinazi and Eytan Ipeker. The feature ‘Album’ which he produced as an Arte France co-production, was awarded the Innovation Award in the Critics’ Week section of the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, the Best Film Award at the Sarajevo Film Festival, the Best Debut Film Award at the Jerusalem Film Festival and the Special Jury Prize in the New Waves Section of the Seville Film Festival.