* We are now getting used to seeing non-Turkish directors winning awards with Turkish films, reports Emrah Guler of the Hurriyet. That is, if you can put a nationality on a film. British director Ben Hopkins surprised Turkish moviegoers two years ago when his "The Market: A Tale of Trade", won four Golden Oranges, including "Best Film" and "Screenplay." Recently, an American director´s film won "Best Film," "Screenplay" and "Actor" awards in the 4th Bursa Silk Road Film Festival. "Dark Cloud" is directed and written by Theron Patterson, an American living in Turkey for almost a decade now. Similar to Hopkins´ movie, "Dark Cloud", tells stories that are unique to this country with characters that are distinctively from Turkey. Patterson said: "In Turkish films you do not see Turkish people you come across on the street. The films are not true to Turkey and its people. So in my film I really focused on shaping my characters to the types of people and environments I was being exposed to on a daily basis." Full story: http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/
* Turkey needs a museum to display musical instruments from around the Turkic world, according to the head of a cultural association who has collected or produced more than 500 of the region´s musical instruments over the past 30 years. "Our primary goal is to establish a museum displaying musical instruments played throughout the whole Turkic world," Ali Ozaydin, chairman of the Turkic World Culture and Arts Association told the Anatolia News Agency. Ozaydin brought his instruments to Erdemli, in the Mediterranean province of Mersin, for this past weekend´s Great Turkish Convention. The event drew over 250 artists. The chairman, who is also the former director of the Culture Ministry Turkic World Music Ensemble, participated in the TuRKSOY event to display his instruments and talk about the Turkic instruments that began drawing his interest in the 1980s. "Through our association, we display these instruments and bring them together with their admirers and the Turkish people," he said. According to drawings etched on rocks, the origin of Turkic musical instruments dates back 6,000 years, he said. "The 6,000 year-old painting of an instrument, the ‘dombra,´ which is similar to the saz [a stringed instrument], was found on a rock in Kazakhstan. This is a very important finding for archaeologists." Full article: http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/
* Turkey´s Restaurants and Suppliers Association will attempt to enter the Guinness Book of World Records with a project titled "2010 Types of Dishes in 2010" in September. Guests who attend the Istanbul 2010 European Capital of Culture, will be offered 2010 types of dishes in a day, reports the Anatolia News Agency. The association´s chairman Ramazan Bingol said the goal was to introduce Turkish cuisine to wider masses, adding that as part of the preparation process for the project, they offered 400 types of dishes to people at the Feshane International Congress and Culture Center in one day in 2007. Full article: http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/
* Speaking to the Anatolia News Agency, the curator of Hagia Sophia Museum, Haluk Dursun said Thursday that the Hagia Sophia Tombs of Sultans were opened to visitors at the end of 2009 after going through enormous restoration. We have found many art items during the restoration of the tombs and decided to put them on display for visitors as of May 29, Dursun said. The tombs themselves, ceramics dating from the 16th century, and special covers were a source of surprise for visitors in 2010, Dursun also said. Hagia Sophia is a former Orthodox patriarchal basilica, later a mosque and now a museum in Istanbul, Turkey. From the date of its dedication in 360 until 1453, it served as the cathedral of Constantinople, except between 1204 and 1261, when it was the cathedral of the Latin empire. The building was a mosque from 29 May 1453 until 1934, when it was secularized. It was opened as a museum on 1 February 1935.
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