Category: Entertainment

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has attended his country's biggest technology and aviation festival Teknofest. The five-day Teknofest in Ankara is set to feature competitions, air shows, exhibitions and workshops, stage plays and special flight experiences for children promising visitors an adventure full of science, technology and space. Our Asli Atbas reports from the festival.

Source: TRTworld.com

Singer songwriter Toto Cutugno, best known for his worldwide 1983 hit song, "L'Italiano", died at the age of 80 on Tuesday, his manager Danilo Mancuso told ANSA.

Cutugno, whose birth name was Salvatore, died in Milan's San Raffaele Hospital "after a long illness, which had become more serious in the last few months", said Mancuso.

Born in Tuscany to a Sicilian father, Cutugno also won the 1990 Eurovision Song Contest with the song "Insieme: 1992".

He won the Sanremo Song Festival only once, with "Solo noi" in 1980, but took part 15 times.

In 2019 a group of Ukrainian musicians tried to stop him performing in Kyiv saying he was a Russian sympathiser like fellow veteran southern Italian star Al Bano.

Source: Ansa News Agency (ANA)

Türkiye's public broadcaster, TRT, has won an award at the 29th Sarajevo Film Festival (SFF).

TRT competed with three award-winning films: Kanto, Club Zero, La Chimera and Blaga's Lessons.

More than 230 films from 70 countries were screened at the festival.

Kanto by director Ensar Altay, tells the story of an elderly woman who suddenly disappeared but her disappearance was not noticed. Kanto was awarded the "Cinelink Impact Award" in the "Work in Progress" category.

The festival ran from August 11 and ended Friday after a closing and awards ceremony.

The Mevlana Celaleddin-i Rumi series, broadcast on TRT's digital platform, Tabi, had its world premiere at SFF.

Forty-nine films in the feature films, short films, documentary films, and student films categories competed for the "Heart of Sarajevo" award - the name given to the awards.

The festival began 29 years ago to make the city a center of culture and art, and help heal the memories of the Bosnian War in the 1990s.

Past festival attendees included luminaries such as Robert de Niro, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Daniel Craig, Orlando Bloom, John Malkovich, Gerard Depardieu, Morgan Freeman and Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan.

Source: TRTworld.com

The 29th Sarajevo Film Festival (SFF) began Friday in the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina with Slovenian director Nenad Cicin-Sain's Kiss the Future.

The opening ceremony was held at the National Theater with major celebrities from the world of cinema taking to the red carpet parade.

The SFF will run until Aug. 18, and viewers worldwide can watch more than 230 films from 70 countries.

Kiss the Future, a documentary movie, showcases the struggle of Sarajevo citizens and how aid worker Bill Carter's determination resulted in enlisting U2 and drawing the world's attention to the Bosnian war.

It follows the city's alternative scene, which uses music and art to provoke change and attract world attention. A post-war U2 concert celebrated the city's hard-won victory against nationalism.

The arrival of surprise guests and film crew members Bono and The Edge from the U2 rock band marked the screening of the opening film.

The U2 stars arrived with their wives Ali Hewson and Morleigh Steinberg, along with model and activist Christy Turlington.

Trkiye's public broadcaster, TRT, will compete in the SFF with three award-winning films set to run until Friday.

Sector-related meetings will be held at the TRT Industry Terrace, set to open in the festival area.

Forty-nine films in the feature films, short films, documentary films and student films categories will compete for the "Heart of Sarajevo" award.

The festival began 29 years ago to erase the traces of the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina and make the city a center of culture and art again.

Past festival attendees included Robert de Niro, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Daniel Craig, Orlando Bloom, John Malkovich, Gerard Depardieu, Morgan Freeman and Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan.

Source: Anadolu Agency

The 2023 World Scout Jamboree wrapped up Friday in Seoul with a lively K-pop concert, bringing together 40,000 scouts, according to Yonhap News.

Despite a tough 12 days of extreme weather, including a heat wave and typhoon, the "K-pop super live" concert sparkled with performances by 18 K-pop artists, including NewJeans, IVE, NCT Dream, ITZY and more. Scouts sang, danced, and cheered in a festive atmosphere, showcasing their resilience.

The Scout flag was handed to Poland, the host of the 2027 jamboree.

Around 43,000 participants from 158 countries participated in events that began Aug. 1 and are scheduled to conclude Saturday.

The event was being held in the western Saemangeum Reclaimed Area from where participants were transported to Seoul and other regions due to a typhoon and the heat wave.

The typhoon hit South Korea on Thursday, affecting thousands.

Dozens of participants at the Jamboree also fell ill because of the heat wave.

"It is the first time in over 100 years of history of World Scout Jamborees to face such compounded challenges, from untimely floods to an unprecedented heatwave and now a typhoon!" World Organization of the Scout Movement head Ahmad Alhendawi said after the events were disrupted.

Source: Anadolu Agency

The concert will take place in the evening on August 29 in Kalamis. Manu Chao will be coming to Istanbul for a concert on August 29 in the scope of the Kalamis Summer Festival. The tickets of the concert to take place in Kalamis, Kadiköy will be put on sale on August 1.

Born in France as the child of a Spanish family, Manu Chao (José-Manuel Thomas Arthur Chao), started his music career as a street performer. Manu spent most of his childhood in Boulogne-Billancourt and Sèvres communes.

Besides love songs, the main theme in many of Manu Chao's songs are about migrants and discrimination.

The singer wore a t-shirt on which it was written "Sulukule will not keep silent" (Sulukule Susmayacak) in order to support the Romans whose houses were being demolished at the time in the scope of an urban renewal project in his concert in Bayonne in France. He also wears the uniform of Galatasaray, one popular soccer team of Istanbul in his concerts from time to time.

Singing songs in French, Spanish, English, Galician, Italian, Arabic, Portugese and occasionally in other languages, he became a solo artist in 1995 after his performances in different bands. He is performing live together with the band Radio Bemba in the concerts and tours ever since

Source: English Bianet

Balat is full of places that hold cultural and historical significance. Amongst other things, it is home to small antique stores that hold auctions multiple times a week — something that has become somewhat of a tradition amongst the antique stores in Balat. Find out more about that tradition. #auctions #Istanbul #Balat

Source: TRTworld.com

Members of UK's performing arts union Equity on Friday held a protest in the capital London and Manchester in solidarity with striking US actors.

Simon Pegg, Brian Cox, David Oyelowo, Andy Serkis, Hayley Atwell were among the hundreds who took part in protests, extending solidarity with members of the Screen Actors Guild - American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA), the Equity's sister union in the US.

It came after the negotiation for new contracts failed between the SAG-AFTRA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), as some Hollywood stars have taken part in the picket lines this week, joining striking members of the Writers Guild of America, who have been on strike for over two and half months.

Speaking at the rally at the Leicester Square in London, Scotch actor Brian Denis Cox who is known for his work with the Royal Shakespeare Company, said that they "are at thin end of horrible wedge."

'What is important to Sag actors is health and they need that. That's why they need their residuals,' said Cox, who is also well known for his role in Troy, as King Agamemnon.

He said the situation is harder in the US due to the lack of a national health service.

Also touching on the challenges posed by Artificial intelligence (AI) were the "worst aspect" of the dispute, Cox said they should fight against "unacceptable position" posed by the AI.

Meanwhile, Equity expressed unwavering solidarity with their "brothers and sisters" in the US, hailing today's demonstrations in Manchester and London.

Anadolu Agency website contains only a portion of the news stories offered to subscribers in the AA News Broadcasting System (HAS), and in summarized form. Please contact us for subscription options.

Source: Anadolu Agency

The aim of the President of the Republic is to promote our culture in the best possible way, said new Deputy Minister of Culture, Vasiliki Kassianidou, during the handover ceremony at the Deputy Ministry of Culture, in Nicosia, on Friday.

Kassianidou thanked outgoing Deputy Minister Michalis Hadjiyiannis, who resigned earlier in the week, for all his hard work, adding that he "put his heart and soul" into the Deputy Ministry. She also noted that her predecessor has already initiated many things.

Addressing the staff of the Deputy Ministry, she promised them that she would work hard with them.

"Promoting our culture, from the newest to the oldest, making the most of it in areas we have not properly done so until now is a goal set by the President," the new Deputy Minister pointed out. "I think we can only move forward if we all work together as one big family," she indicated.

On his part, Hadjiyiannis said that the Deputy Ministry of Culture completed one year of operation on July 1st and that the challenges before his successor are many. He also congratulated Kassianidou on her appointment and wished her every success in her work.

The main challenge, he continued, "is the living creature called Culture with such deep roots in Cyprus, that administratively and structurally has begun to walk, to stand on its own two feet and to respond to the great challenges facing our time".

"We have made plans and we have forged paths and based on our vision we did what we announced in these 4.5 months, while we also planned important - in my opinion - reforms such as the restructuring of sponsorship programmes, the extroversion of culture and the strengthening of cultural education," Hadjiyiannis noted.

In addition, he expressed the certainty that the new Deputy Minister, with the support of the people of culture and the staff of the Deputy Ministry, will continue building on what has already been achieved based on the Deputy Ministry's cornerstones, which are the Department of Newer and Contemporary Culture, the Cyprus Handicrafts Service and the Department of Antiquities.

The outgoing Deputy Minister thanked the officials of the Deputy Ministry, the Permanent Secretary, Emmanuela Lambrianidou, as well as the President Nikos Christodoulides, "for his trust and friendship". In addition, he thanked the people of Cyprus for their love and support.

Source: Cyprus News Agency