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Film Studies: National Cinemas

This guide highlights selected resources for various national cinemas.

Introduction

During the period leading up to and including World War I, Turkey was largely dependent on films imported from France. Domestic film production was limited to a handful of short propaganda documentaries made by the military, including Ayastefanos’taki Rus Abidesinin Yιkιlιşι‎/The Demolition of the Russian Monument at St Stephan (1914), which is claimed to be the first Turkish film. The earliest locally produced feature films, Pençe/The Claw and Casus/The Spy were both directed by Sedat Simavi and released in 1917. When Turkey became a secular republic in 1923 feature film production began on a very small scale. Worthy of note are two production companies—Ipek Film and Kemal Film—and the work of German-trained theatre director Muhsin Ertuğrul, who adapted popular Turkish and European plays and remade foreign films. Ertuğrul was a prominent figure in Turkish cinema, directing thirty-six films between 1919 and 1953, including İstanbul sokaklarι‎n/The Streets of Istanbul (1931), Turkey’s earliest synchronized sound film.     ...

Kuhn, A., & Westwell, G. (2020). Turkey, film in. In A Dictionary of Film Studies. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 24 Jan. 2021

In the library's collections/Searching the online catalog

You can use the following links to begin your research into Turkish cinema.

Introductory reading(s)

Selected book titles

Other library resource(s)

Finding scholarly articles and journal titles

You can find articles about Turkish cinema in a variety of publications. You can start your search in a subject specific index such as Film & Television Literature Index, use a more multi-disciplinary database such as Web of Science or use the search box at the top of the page.

Selected movie titles

Find more Turkish films in the library's online catalog.