Innocence of Memories - Orhan Pamuk's Museum and Istanbul

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Manuela Cavallari

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Giulia Santaroni

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Orhan Pamuk - Turkey's Nobel laureate for Literature - opens a museum in Istanbul. A museum that's a fiction: its objects trace a tale of doomed love in 1970's Istanbul. The film takes a tour of the objects as the starting point for a trip through love stories, landscapes and the chemistry of the city.

"Like many people, when I first visited Istanbul, I read Orhan Pamuk. From the very start, my view of the city was through the prism of his imagination. And I knew that Orhan had imagined a place called ‘The Museum of Innocence' and in 2008 had published a big novel of that name. What I didn't know was that, two months after my first visit to Istanbul in 2012, Orhan would open the doors to the real Museum of Innocence. A real, 5-storey museum of real objects - the debris and treasure of a tragic love affair from 30 years ago. A museum which immediately became established as part of Istanbul's real cultural itinerary: the Bosphorus Cruise, Hagia Sophia, Blue Mosque, Grand Bazaar, Museum of Innocence." [Grant Gee]

GRANT GEE received a Grammy nomination in 1997 for his documentary about Radiohead, Meeting People Is Easy. He also directed the iconic music video for the group's song No Surprises. His film Joy Division won the UK's Grierson Award for Best Theatrical Documentary (2008), while his film The Western Lands of the same year won Best Short Film at the Banff Film Festival. His 2012 film Patience (After Sebald), about W.G. Sebald's unclassifiable masterpiece, The Rings of Saturn, premiered at the New York Film Festival and enjoyed successful theatrical runs in both the UK and US. He is currently developing his first drama feature, an adaptation of Alison Moore's novel The Lighthouse.

2015 Innocence of Memories. Orhan Pamuk's Museum and Istanbul (doc)

2012 Patience (After Sebald) (doc)

2008 The Western Lands (short)

2008 Joy Division (doc)

1997 Meeting People Is Easy (doc)