“Coffee is real good when you drink it gives you time to think. It’s a lot more than just a drink;
it’s something happening. Not as in hip, but like an event, a place to be, but not like a location,
but like somewhere within yourself. It gives you time, but not actual hours or minutes,
but a chance to be, like be yourself, and have a second cup.”
Gertrude Stein
Pera Film’s first program for the New Year is brewing with a selection of cinematic tales of coffee and the enigmatic culture surrounding it. As Gertrude Stein eloquently puts it, coffee is “a lot more than just a drink.” The film program Coffee’s Just an Excuse, Cinema’s the Muse, presented in the context of the Museum’s collection exhibition Coffee Break: The Adventure of Coffee in Kütahya Tiles and Ceramics, explores coffee and its culture in cinema through narrative fiction and documentaries. Coffee was discovered in Ethiopia; this “magic fruit” reached the land of the Ottomans through Yemen in the 15th century. Coffee soon assumed its place as a prestigious beverage in the palace and wealthy households. Over time, it not only generated its own rituals and ceremonies, but also played an instrumental role in the development of social life. The selected films for this coffee program travel into different aspects of the social life. Jim Jarmusch’s cult film Coffee and Cigarettes conjures up a nostalgic time when people actually took the time to converse with one another, a time when coffee and cigarettes were the props over which we shared our worries rather than the causes of them. Wayne Wang’s wanderings around Brooklyn with writer Paul Auster, which came to life as the film Smoke is about a tobacconist on an intersection in Brooklyn, providing a haven from the hustle and flow for his peculiar customers. Blue in the Face presents a series of improvisational situations strung together forming a collage of unusual characters; Straight to Hell a film about a gang of bank robbers finding their way to a surreal town full of cowboys who drink an awful lot of coffee. Inside Llewyn Davis tells the story of a struggling folk singer in 1960s New York City, Greenwich Village performing at a coffeehouse, the Gaslight Café, a countercultural institution showcasing poets and folk music. Coffee: Between Reality and Imagination is a cinematic collaboration between young Israeli and Palestinian filmmakers, who together created a series of short films, all dealing with - coffee. The satirical documentary Coffee Futures weaves individual fortunes with the story of Turkey's decades-long attempts to become a member of the European Union whereas Hot Coffee investigates what lies behind America's obsession with “the civil wrong” through the McDonald's coffee case. The program’s final selection is a documentary A Film About Coffee, a love letter to, and meditation on, specialty coffee. A short animation film on coffee accompanies the program.
January 14
19:00 A Film About Coffee
January 16
19:00 A Film About Coffee
20:30 Smoke
January 17
14:00 Hot Coffee
18:00 Coffee and Cigarettes
January 18
14:00 Smoke
16:00 Blue in the Face
18:00 Straight to Hell
January 28
19:00 Blue in the Face
January 29
19:00 Hot Coffee
January 30
18:00 Coffee Futures
A Cup of Turkish Coffee
21:00 Inside Llewyn Davis
January 31
13:00 Coffee Futures
A Cup of Turkish Coffee
16:00 Coffee: Between Reality and Imagination
19:00 Straight to Hell
February 1
13:00 Coffee: Between Reality and Imagination
15:00 Inside Llewyn Davis
17:00 Coffee and Cigarettes
January 14
19:00 A Film About Coffee
January 16
19:00 A Film About Coffee
20:30 Smoke
January 17
14:00 Hot Coffee
18:00 Coffee and Cigarettes
January 18
14:00 Smoke
16:00 Blue in the Face
18:00 Straight to Hell
January 28
19:00 Blue in the Face
January 29
19:00 Hot Coffee
January 30
18:00 Coffee Futures
A Cup of Turkish Coffee
21:00 Inside Llewyn Davis
January 31
13:00 Coffee Futures
A Cup of Turkish Coffee
16:00 Coffee: Between Reality and Imagination
19:00 Straight to Hell
February 1
13:00 Coffee: Between Reality and Imagination
15:00 Inside Llewyn Davis
17:00 Coffee and Cigarettes
Program Trailer
Pera Museum presents an exhibition of French artist Félix Ziem, one of the most original landscape painters of the 19th century. The exhibition Wanderer on the Sea of Light presents Ziem as an artist who left his mark on 19th century painting and who is mostly known for his paintings of Istanbul and Venice, where the city and the sea are intertwined.
You try to remember the future. A bird painted on the ceramic panel in a historical palace has found its place on the wall. The tiles of a church and a mosque have been painted on canvas. The pattern of a centuries-old ceramic plate appears before you on a velvet curtain.
Among the most interesting themes in the oeuvre of Prassinos are cypresses, trees, and Turkish landscapes. The cypress woods in Üsküdar he saw every time he stepped out on the terrace of their house in İstanbul or the trees in Petits Champs must have been strong images of childhood for Prassinos.
Tuesday - Saturday 10:00 - 19:00
Friday 10:00 - 22:00
Sunday 12:00 - 18:00
The museum is closed on Mondays.
On Wednesdays, the students can
visit the museum free of admission.
Full ticket: 200 TL
Discounted: 100 TL
Groups: 150 TL (minimum 10 people)
