Korkut Ata Film Festival Brings 56 Turkic Films to Istanbul

The sixth Korkut Ata Turkic World Film Festival is under way in Istanbul and runs through Nov. 7, 2026. Screenings are free at five venues across the city. The programme includes 56 films from 10 countries and 10 autonomous republics and communities.

The festival opened with a concert and the Kyrgyz film “Aytmatov” at Atlas 1948 Cinema. More than 150 international guests and 300 film professionals from Türkiye are taking part, according to Türkiye Today.

What the Korkut Ata Film Festival Programme Offers

Thirty of the 56 films compete for awards. Ten each run in the feature fiction, documentary and short film categories. Juries of directors, actors and film professionals from Turkic countries judge the entries.

The feature fiction competition gives awards for best film, director, screenplay, actress and actor. The documentary and short film competitions award first, second and third prizes.

Other sections are not competitive. They include Contemporary Human Landscapes, Historical Panorama, the Turquoise Documentary Strand and animation screenings.

Venues, Summit and Awards Night

Besides Atlas 1948 Cinema, screenings take place at AKM Yeşilçam Cinema, Emek Cinema, Istanbul University’s Faculty of Communication and Istanbul Commerce University’s Sadabat Hall. The schedule is on the festival website, korkutatafilmfestivali.com.

The Turkic World Cinema Summit at The Marmara Grand Ballroom covers co-production and cooperation across the sector. The festival also holds its first Türkiye-Kyrgyzstan project pitching event. Filmmakers from both countries present projects to juries, and four projects will receive support.

On Nov. 7, a panel at Atlas 1948 Cinema will discuss artificial intelligence in cinema and the digital transformation of ancient narratives. The awards ceremony follows at 8 p.m. the same day at the Atatürk Cultural Center (AKM) in Taksim, on Istanbul’s European side.

Why Aytmatov and Korkut Ata Matter

The festival takes its name from Korkut Ata, a legendary figure of Turkic oral tradition. Readers may know him from the Book of Dede Korkut, a collection of epic tales. This year’s opening film honours Cengiz Aytmatov, the Kyrgyz writer.

TURKSOY Secretary General Sultan Raev announced that the organisation will declare 2028 “Cengiz Aytmatov Year.” That year marks 100 years since the writer’s birth.

Deputy Minister of Culture and Tourism Gökhan Yazgı said cinema “reflects the memory, dreams, joys and pains” of societies. He noted that 2026 marks 35 years since the Turkic republics regained independence in 1991.

The festival began in Istanbul in 2021. It later took place in Bursa, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan, and it has now returned to Istanbul. Viewers who follow Turkish historical dramas will find the event a useful window into the wider Turkic storytelling tradition. Those series often draw on similar steppe-era themes.

Source: Türkiye Today
Featured image: Maurice Flesier / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0