Festival Staff

Vedide Kaymak

Festival Director

After graduating in Political Science and Journalism, Vedide worked in a variety of Turkish media organisations before moving to London, and a career in the cinema industry. Vedide initially worked with various arts and cultural organisations promoting Turkish culture in the UK, programming for MTV's Turkish channel and co-producing short films. However, it was her work at the Rio Cinema in East London as Front of House Manager and the subsequent creation of the London Turkish Film Festival that fulfilled her career ambition. 15 years later, through Vedide's leadership, the Festival has grown from a three-day event to an internationally renowned festival, which this year she established as an independent organisation with Yesim Guzelpinar of Balik Arts. For the last ten years, Vedide has also successfully promoted and distributed Turkish films to cinemas throughout the UK.

Yesim Guzelpinar

General Manager

After graduating in English Language and Literature in Turkey, Yesim studied Linguistics in London. After a two-year period in Turkey working in international trade union relations, she returned to the UK to do a masters degree in European Social Policy at the LSE. In 1999 after working at management level in various organisations and businesses, Yesim founded Balik Arts, an organisation working with Turkish speaking children and young people, where she devised, fundraised for and implemented many local and international projects. These now include information/advice/guidance, filmmaking, radio broadcasting, drama, crime prevention, literacy and parenting projects. The short films produced by the young people of Balik Arts have been regularly shown at the London Turkish Film Festival. The collaboration with the LTFF extended to an audience development project, and since 2008, a full partnership. In 2009, she was the co-founder with Vedide Kaymak of the LTFF as an independent organisation.

Peter Howden

Co-Programmer

Peter Howden has been part of the London independent cinema scene for over forty years. He managed and programmed both the Electric, Portobello Road and the Everyman, Hampstead in the years when independent repertory cinemas flourished in the capital. Peter has also ventured into the distribution side of the film business and he is still a regular at the Hong Kong Film Festival. He still enjoys watching, writing about and even showing films and currently does all three at the Rio Dalston, home of the LondonTurkish Film Festival for a mere fifteen years!

Sevket Onur Cihan

Short and Documentary Film Programmer

He has graduated from Ankara University Faculty of Communications, Department of Radio TV and Cinema. He also studied Children's Theatre and Educational Drama as a Masters student at Theatre Department of the same university. In addition to working as a freelance drama teacher, he has also worked for Film Office Turkey for three years. He has directed, produced, shot, and edited several short films and documentaries including the award winning 'People of The Backyard' and 'Omer Come Home'.

Calendar

November 2009

s	m	t	w	t	f	s
1	2	3	4	5	6	7
8	9	10	11	12	13	14
15	16	17	18	19	20	21

Festival Venues

• BAFTA Piccadilly
• Apollo Piccadilly Circus
• Rio Cinema

Sponsors

In Kind Sponsors

Media Sponsor

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