The 56 th Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival, set to begin on October 26 around the theme “Back to Roots”, has announced the recipients of this year’s Honorary Awards. The awards will go to: Selma Güneri, who earned her first award at the age of just 14 in Antalya, and remains to this day the youngest Golden Orange winning actor in the festival’s history; and Ahmet Mekin, one of Turkish cinema’s foremost young leads and character actors, who has starred in countless classics from Lütfi Akad’s The Wedding (Düğün) to Atıf Yılmaz’s The Girl with the Red Scarf (Selvi Boylum, Al Yazmalım). The two veteran actors will be presented their awards at the Opening Ceremony and take part in a special Q&A with the people of Antalya during the course of the Festival.
The Festival wrote in its explanation of the awards: “It has been decided to present the 56 th Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival Honorary Awards to two of Turkish cinema’s outstanding actors, Selma Güneri and Ahmet Mekin. Since beginning her film career with a role in Halit Refiğ’s Girls of Istanbul (İstanbul’un Kızları) when she was a mere 13 years old, Güneri, has starred in over 100 films. Accolades came early, and with her performances with Yılmaz Güney in I Live as Long as I Die (Ben Öldükçe Yaşarım) and Ediz Hun in The Last Birds (Son Kuşlar), which defined her and Hun as one of Turkish cinema’s iconic couples, she became the youngest actor in the history of the Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival to win Best Female Actor Award. The depth of interpretation she has brought to female characters in her numerous and memorable films from The Last Birds to Candle Scented Women (Mum Kokulu Kadınlar) has made Güneri one of Turkish cinema’s most individual faces. Ahmet Mekin, on the other hand, launched his screen career in 1956 at the insistence of his close friend, Kenan Pars. He has since acted in close to 200 films across the genres, including westerns, musicals, sci-fi and fantasy, becoming one of the Yeşilçam era’s most handsome and impressive young male leads. With notable performances as Cemşit Kıraç in The Girl with the Red Scarf, as Ferhat in The Wedding and İrfan in The Wounded Wolf (Yaralı Kurt), as well as star roles in cult television mini- series such as To Create a Man (Bir Adam Yaratmak), The Noble of Today (Bugünün Saraylısı) and Man in the Jar (Kavanozdaki Adam), Mekin has left an indelible mark in our visual memories.
