Istancool Diary

For three mind-expanding days and nights, the lively streets of Istanbul play host to Istancool, the city’s annual cultural extravaganza. Filmmakers Carlo Lavagna and Roberto de Paolis caught the festivities on camera this year for NOWNESS, skipping between the spectacular glass-and-mirrored Vakko Fashion Centre and the grand 19th-century Pera Museum, where the cultural jet-set took part in a packed schedule of talks, screenings, music performances and boat rides along the Bosphorus. The starry guestlist included a luminous Kirsten Dunst, fresh from her best actress win at Cannes; director Terry Gilliam, who chatted about his turbulent adventures in filmmaking with Istanbul-based director Alphan Eseli; and Tilda Swinton, who dissected life in front of the camera with Turkish film star Serra Yilmaz. The festival closed with an electrifying live set by Courtney Love. The Istanbul International Festival of Culture was held in association with AnOther Magazine and Turkish partner Istanbul'74 and is the brainchild of 27-year-old cultural entrepreneur Pablo Ganguli, whose organization, Liberatum, has hosted arts festivals in Papua New Guinea, Morocco, Delhi and St Petersberg; festival co-founder Demet Muftuoglu Eseli collaborated with Liberatum on the ambitious production. With Istancool, Ganguli aims to forge relations between Turkey and the international creative community: “It’s the soul of this city that makes it work,” he explains. “One of my favorite things is to the watch the ferries on the Bosphorus, sailing between two continents. Istanbul is such a vast melting pot of cultures and ideas, a juxtaposition of east and west. You feel quite blessed to be here.”