Variety
“Antalya: Festival Stays Strong in Face of Turkey’s Political Turmoil” 

Over the years, the Antalya Film Festival, now in it 53rd edition, has successfully ridden any waves generated by Turkey’s political turbulence. Still, staging the event, which runs Oct. 16-23, just three months after an attempted coup had no precedence.

What happened July 15 in Turkey “was a really, really weird situation,” says the fest’s artistic director Elif Dagdeviren, “and it was all very traumatic for all of us.”
Antalya is not the country’s first big film event to take place after the failed coup attempt.

It follows the Adana Film Festival held in Turkey’s southeastern city of Adana in September. This year, due to the country’s security concerns, few foreign guests attended Adana, though the fest drew a large local crowd. And earlier this year, the Istanbul Film Festival took place one week after a March suicide bombing in the city’s central Beyoglu district. That festival saw copious cancellations of international attendees and also suffered diminished local audience attendance.