The experience behind 2. El and Fantasturka returns to Ankara as the Sustainers Film Festival

BASIN BÜLTENİ 01Ağustos 2026 | Ankara

Nothing in cinema is single-use

Born out of the experience of the team behind 2. El Film Festivali and Fantasturka – The Turkish Fantasy and Horror Film Festival, the Sustainers Film Festival will meet audiences at CerModern in Ankara on 7–8 November 2026.

Organised by the Sustainers Culture and Ecology Association, the festival sets out to bring audiences newly made films alongside work that has screened before but never found enough visibility, or that has fallen out of circulation over time.

Fifteen editions, from then until now

Running for ten editions between 2007 and 2016, 2. El Film Festivali — the Second-Hand Film Festival, dedicated to films eliminated in preliminary selection — brought rejected films back to audiences. Working from the premise that a film cut in preliminary selection is not a bad film, it argued that a single selection committee's decision should not end a film's journey.

Fantasturka – The Turkish Fantasy and Horror Film Festival, launched in 2011, returned Turkish cinema's long-overlooked fantasy, horror and science-fiction heritage to the big screen, bringing cult films, the people who made them and a new generation of filmmakers together in the same programme.

Across fifteen editions in Ankara and Istanbul, the two festivals shared a single idea: a film falling out of circulation does not mean it has lost its value.

Films, footage and materials return to circulation

The Sustainers Film Festival carries that idea beyond the films themselves. It holds that the unused footage, sound, ideas, sets, costumes and creative labour generated during a production are not single-use either.

Alongside bringing finished films to audiences, the festival aims to make room for unfinished projects, alternative cuts, and production material that can become the source of new work.

The festival's first programme strands are planned as follows:

• New Circulation: newly made short and feature-length films

• Re-Circulation: work that has screened before or fallen out of circulation over time

• The Unfinished: projects looking for the space to be completed, or for new collaborations

• Film Compost – The Second Cut: a dedicated programme in which unused footage becomes the source of new work

The festival will include fiction, documentary, animation and experimental work. Films will not be required to be about nature or ecology. Alongside cinematic merit and originality, the conditions of production, the way resources were used, and the film's contribution to re-circulation will also be taken into account.

Low budgets and limited means will not count as a value in themselves. The festival will make visible not scarcity, but the creative and responsible relationship built with the resources at hand.

The festival also aims not to limit its relationship with selected films to a single screening. In the longer term, it plans to establish a curated online screening space where films can reach audiences again, with the permission of their rights holders.

The festival will assess its own impact

From material use to transport, printed matter to catering and waste management, the festival will treat its own way of operating as part of its approach to sustainability.

The aims include reducing unnecessary printed material, reusing existing materials, developing local partnerships, separating waste, and returning suitable organic waste to the soil.

Organised by the Sustainers Culture and Ecology Association, the festival sets out to make the relationship between culture and ecology visible through cinema, and to build a festival model that continues after the screening ends.

Festival: Sustainers Film FestivalDates: 7–8 November 2026Venue: CerModern, AnkaraOrganised by: Sustainers Culture and Ecology AssociationWeb: festival.surdurebilirsin.orgEmail: sende@surdurebilirsin.orgInstagram: @surdurebilirsin