THE 21st INTERNATIONAL ISTANBUL FILM FESTIVAL took place on 13-28 April 2002 and presented twelve films in the international competition with an overriding theme of the world of the art and the artist. From France, Ma femme est une actrice (My Wife is an Actress) by Yvan Attal explored the dilemmas of a sports writer whose wife was a famous actress. An actor in real life and married to a famous actress, Charlotte Gainsbourg (the daughter of actress /singer Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg, the

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... nfant terrible of the seventies music scene), Attal drew inspiration from his own experiences in this warm comedy about the fragile male ego. The fact that Charlotte played the leading role added a certain dimension of cinema verite to the film. From China, Zuotian (Quitting), the third feature of Zhang Yang (Shower, 1999) was a sensitive rendition of the harrowing experience of the late...