Special issue :The Status of Women as Subject in the Films of Contemporary Turkish Female Directors
This study focuses on how female characters are represented in the films of contemporary female directors in Turkey. In this study, the films of female directors Yeşim Ustaoğlu, Pelin Esmer, Ahu Öztürk, and Emine Emel Balcı are examined in the context of women’s cinema and feminist film reading. In this study, the films Tereddüt (“Clair-Obscur,” 2016), Gözetleme Kulesi (“Watchtower,” 2012), Toz Bezi (“Dust Cloth,” 2015), and Nefesim Kesilene Kadar (“Until I Lose My Breath,” 2015) are discussed using sociological film analysis. Unlike mainstream films, the female characters in the narratives of these films do not succeed even when they engage in a struggle for liberation. The female characters are imprisoned in the masculine ideology and find their salvation in relation to being with a man.
2. Is it possible to discuss if there is women's cinema in Turkish cinema?
3. How are women portrayed in the films directed by the contemporary Turkish female directors?
4. What can be said about the difference and similarities between the mainstream cinema and women's cinema?
Hasan Gürkan
Hasan Gürkan is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Communication at Istanbul Arel University in Turkey. He holds his Ph.D. from Istanbul University Department of Radio, Television and Cinema. He has done his post-doc research in the department of Journalism and Communication Sciences Institute at the University of Vienna. He focuses on counter cinema, Hollywood Cinema, alternative media, cinema and representations, cinema-migration-transnational films, and gender studies.