ABOUT

For festival, please visit: https://icpsff.com/

Katadrom Arts, Culture and Social Politics Association began in Istanbul in 2010 as an initiative launched by a group of filmmakers, festival organisers, photographers, activists, academics, and cultural professionals; it gained legal status as an association on 21.06.2012. The founders’ civil society experience in the fields of human rights and democracy has ensured that Katadrom adopts a rights-based perspective centred on equality, justice, and social peace across all of its activities.

Katadrom acts with a vision of an inclusive, fair, and sustainable future by blending the transformative power of art with the discipline of social policy. As a non-profit organisation, it has made it its mission to foster artistic creativity, to support the active participation of marginalised and vulnerable communities in social life, and to develop dialogue and cultural interaction among different communities through cinema and audio-visual media. In line with this, it both organises festivals and events directly, and develops trainings and methodologies to strengthen the audio-visual capacity of civil society and young people, while also advocating for the accessibility of art to everyone through inclusive production techniques. Since its establishment, Katadrom has realised numerous projects supporting different groups, including underprivileged youth, older adults and people living with dementia, the visually and hearing impaired, refugees, minorities, and civil society workers.

In recent years, Katadrom has been developing projects and partnerships aimed at strengthening the capacity and vision of cultural institutions and actors, in particular to prevent the social exclusion of older adults, people living with dementia, and their caregivers, and to enable their active participation in cultural life. For Katadrom, art is not an end in itself, but a fundamental tool for social change, mutual learning, healing, expression, and an inclusive space that leaves no one behind.

Among the leading initiatives that Katadrom has organised since its founding are the International Changing Perspectives Film Festival, held in a different city each year since 2013; Katadrom Art Colony, designed as a cultural centre and artist residency in Tepebaşı, Eskişehir; Lost and Found Film Days, which brings together cinema, history, and academia; and Shadows and Echoes Film Screenings, one of its flagship projects for the visually and hearing impaired. In addition, Katadrom has taken on roles such as general coordination, program direction, consultancy, and training in numerous projects in collaboration with public institutions, municipalities, universities, foundations, and international partners: “We Produce Together: Sustainable Integration of Migrants into the Labour Market,” which aims at the integration of migrant and refugee groups into the labour market; the Age-Friendly and Dementia-Friendly Society and Arts & Culture projects, which aim to increase the participation of older adults and people living with dementia in cultural life; Cine-Train, an audio-visual capacity-building programme for civil society trainers; the Collaborative Filmmaking and Shooting Bridging Differences projects, which developed an inclusive and democratic filmmaking methodology; the Birİz Project, which focuses on shared Turkish-German history; and the award-winning documentary “Rootless Resident,” which focuses on minority rights and which Katadrom co-produced.

Katadrom is a member of the Culture Access Platform / Accessible Film Festival Network, which aims to make culture and the arts accessible to everyone, and of the Anna Lindh Foundation (ALF) network, founded by the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership. Its national and international, interdisciplinary collaborations built over the years include Goethe-Institut Istanbul, Aktion Sühnezeichen Friedensdienste, Kyrnéa International, Moviemiento, French Cultural Center Istanbul, Bosphorus Film Festival, Pera Museum, Meşher/Sadberk Hanım Museum, Bogazici University, Kadıköy Municipality Sinematek/Cinema House, Beşiktaş Municipality, Tepebaşı Municipality, Listag, Romanlar Eğitim Kültür Derneği, MaviBlau (Berlin), Friendzone Studio, Cine Club de Avanca, Kultur Art Detmold, Meta Film Dubai, and Porto Femme. Katadrom took a pioneering role in holding a publicly open film screening at the Halki/Heybeliada Seminary.

Board of Directors

Murat Yıldırım — Chair of the Board
Hülya Demirden — Secretary General
Yusuf Bahar — Board Member
Kenan Özcan — Board Member
Duygu Yıldırım — Board Member

Having carried out numerous national and international events and projects to date, both with its own resources and with the contributions of private and public supporters, Katadrom has undertaken, and continues to undertake, program and general coordination for many festivals and events — foremost among them its partner organisation Katadrom Productions (formerly Atonic Project), as well as the Malatya Film Festival, the International Crime and Punishment Film Festival, the Rendezvous Istanbul Film Festival, the Silk Road Film Festival, the Edirne Film Festival, the Bosphorus Film Festival, the International Migration Film Festival, Documentarist, the Which Human Rights Film Festival, and New Cinema Screenings Every Friday. Working primarily on project-based funding and grants from the European Union, public institutions, and international foundations, Katadrom has, despite its limited resources, built a wide and diverse project portfolio and developed strong collaborations at the national and international level.

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