It has been announced that Turkish-German director Fatih Akın’s new film “The Cut” has been taken out of next month’s Filmekimi festival program, event organizer the İstanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV) announced on Saturday, Septemebr 13.“The producer of Fatih Akın’s film ‘The Cut,’ Anka Film, has withdrawn the film from the Filmekimi lineup on the grounds that the film’s [Turkish] theatrical release date has been pushed back. The film will not be shown at Filmekimi,” the İKSV said in a brief written statement. “The Cut” was scheduled to open in Turkish cinemas on Oct. 17, and it was due to have its Turkish premiere as part of Filmekimi, which runs from Oct. 11-17, Ali Akdeniz, a producer of “The Cut,” was quoted as saying in the statement.“After the film’s release date was postponed to December, which created a two-month gap between the premiere and the theatrical release, we decided with the film’s distributor to cancel the Filmekimi screening,” Akdeniz said in the statement.“The Cut” had its world premiere on Aug. 31 at this year’s Venice Film Festival, where it appeared in the main competition. The last film in Akın’s “Love, Death and the Devil” trilogy, “The Cut” follows the fictional story of an Armenian blacksmith who is separated from his wife and twin daughters during the atrocities committed against Ottoman Armenians in 1915 and sets out on a journey around the world to find them.
“The Cut,” stars French actor Tahar Rahim as Armenian blacksmith Nazaret Manoogian, a father of twins who is conscripted into the army at the start of WWI. His eight year journey starts in Mardin, (in what is present day Turkey near the Syrian border), and includes stops in Lebanon, Havana, Florida and North Dakota along the way. The story also incorporates the genocide of Armenians in 1915, a subject that only in the past five years has ceased being considered taboo in Turkey. In April 2014, the Turkish Prime Minster acknowledged the events; however, no official apology has been declared. ✪
