Who Are We?

Flying Broom was founded and began its activities in 1996. The organization’s initial aim was to establish a network between women’s NGOs and to function as an information and documentation center. Over the years, our organization has raised many funds from both national and international sources towards the implementation of projects under the scope of improving women’s status and capacity. Flying Broom is supported by a large circle of volunteers from women’s NGOs, the media, universities, individual activists etc. By promoting women's empowerment, Flying Broom also aims to contribute to the process of democratization and the development of a civil society in Turkey, in accordance with the international gender equality norms and principles formulated at Beijing (1995) and other international conferences and summits.

The Festival

Flying Broom International Women’s Film Festival has been organized every year since 1998 with the goal of using the narrative of cinema to raise public awareness about gender issues. Starting from the first year we have screened feature films, short films and documentaries, and organized panel discussions, and exhibitions. In addition we have produced documentaries and published books. Short film competitions as well as short film screenplay competitions have been organized since the second Flying Broom International Women’s Film Festival in 1999. The festival is an international organization where feature length, short, documentary and animation films by women directors from Turkey and around the world are presented to the audiences in a framework of specific themes, panels, discussions, film screenings, and exhibitions.

The Festival has been growing year by year and finally in its 6th year in 2003 we added an international section to our festival. Since our 6th edition, FIPRESCI (International Film Critics Federation) has been sending an international jury who select one of the films, which are produced in the last two years and screened in the “Each Has a Different Color” section of the festival, to grant the FIPRESCI Award. In addition to this, from its 6th year onward the festival established the Honorary Award and Bilge Olgaç Achievement Awards to remember the women who have made great efforts for cinema and appreciate their works.

The festival is an international organization where feature length, short, documentary and animation films by women directors from Turkey and around the world are presented to the audiences within the framework of specific themes, panels discussions and exhibitions. In addition to the film screenings, local and international directors, press members and film critiques are hosted in Ankara as a part of the festival.

Festival's long term aims can be summarized as follows:

• To spread discussions related to gender and women's issues through using the impressive language of the art of cinema.
• To introduce films by women directors from around the world to festival audiences.
• To make contributions to the history of cinema in Turkey and the world through research conducted within the framework of the festival.
• To promote the cinema of individual countries and artists in an effective way both domestically and internationally.
• To create the necessary environment where women filmmakers from Turkey and foreign filmmakers can come together and make common projects.
• To be a medium for the audiences to meet with different cultures through the examples of art of cinema from different countries.
• To enable the enhancement of institutional efforts that will improve the status of women, especially in the field.