About us

The International Crimean Film Festival is an international cultural and artistic platform established to make visible the history, culture, collective memory, and contemporary stories of Crimea and the Crimean Tatar people through cinema. The festival aims to preserve, document, and transmit the cultural memory of Crimean Tatars, scattered across the world due to exiles and migrations, to future generations.

The first series of the festival will take place in Istanbul from September 16-20, 2026. The five-day event will include documentary and short film competitions, non-competitive film screenings, interviews with directors and producers, panels, and unique meetings. Additionally, a special exhibition showcasing the tangible cultural heritage of Crimean Tatars, including handicrafts, archival documents, photographs, and various cultural artifacts, will be presented to the audience.

The International Crimean Film Festival is not merely an event consisting of film screenings; it is also a multifaceted meeting point aiming to foster dialogue, strengthen cultural solidarity, and create a shared space of memory. The festival aims to create space for narratives about Crimea, Crimean Tatar identity, and this geography through the universal language of cinema.

The festival’s competition section consists of Documentary Film and Short Film categories. Documentary films must be under 70 minutes, and short films under 35 minutes. Productions made within the last three years are accepted into the competition. Application requirements and all announcements are published on the festival’s official website, www.kirimfilm.org.

The festival’s main target audience includes film critics, documentary filmmakers, academics, artists, young filmmakers, and Crimean Tatars living in different parts of the world. Initially held in Istanbul, the festival aims to become a mobile and sustainable international event in subsequent years, taking place in various cities and countries.

The International Crimean Film Festival is organized by a team of volunteers under the chairmanship of Zafer Karatay and the management of Neşe Sarısoy Karatay, within the Emel Turkish Culture Research and Promotion Foundation. The festival team consists of: This initiative invites students, young people, and adults who are passionate about cinema and the preservation of cultural heritage to participate in the process.

Our aim is to encourage the production of films about Crimea, to bring these films to an international audience, and to create a lasting visual archive of the cultural heritage of the Crimean Tatar people. The International Crimean Film Festival is a call for solidarity that aims to keep memory alive and contribute to cultural continuity through the power of cinema.